Well, I've always has good laughs from Rush, but never from his liberal twin.  But now, I have found a game which is just as funny in a liberal way as Rush is in a conservative way.  Just as a warning, there are some meant to be offensive and even blasphemous bits in there!   Thanks to Sciguy for the link. 

 

The Guildshelm Legacy: The Second World Chronicles was so good, I'm reading it a second time.  When I get some money I'll have to go buy Lord of Ten Shadows: The Second World Chronicles.  I have so many questions to be answered about what could happen. 

 

I'm over half way through yet another six day work week.  I sure wish I had more time to do all of things I need to do.  So, I'm trying to squeeze in a little entry here. 

 

Last Saturday's session of Steve's FR 3.0 campaign was a turning point to be sure.  We received our payment from when we lent our red chips to the stablemaster for him to bet on us.  Because he owed us so much, he payed us in a blue chip each.  Because we did so well, he was also unable to get another match for us the next day.  Apparently, one blue chip is equal to ten red chips.  So we argued about whether or not we should move up the the Palace or remain in the Pits.  Turin and Capernicus wanted to stay in the Pits while the others moved up, hoping that those of us who haven't burned bridges here could get more intel on our own.  Magnus didn't want the group to be split.  Turok and Malekith wanted to move up, figuring that we've learned everything we can down in the Pits already.  It ended with Malekith and Turok moving up on their own, and Magnus requesting that Capernicus go follow them as a babysitter.  Magnus and Turin would follow in the next day or two if need be. 

 

So, Magnus and Turin hung out in the cafeteria, eavesdropping and reading lips to learn more.  The dread warriors approached the quogroths with a deal to share their newfound escapre route if they would assist in the slaying of their enemies.  The quogroth agreed, and the two groups seemed disappointed to see that Turok was no longer in the Pits.  Magnus and Turin played it off, seemingly confused as to why their friends visited the quatermaster but never returned.  The quagroth alpha informed them of our "trechery" in that we must have moved to the Palace without inviting them.  He asked that the two of them stand aside when they recieved their righteous revenge against Turok, as he had no beef with them.  They agreed to go along. 

 

Meanwhile, the others moved to the Palace.  In the Palace, each cell had a wall inbetween each group, rather than bars.  The doors were left unlocked except at night, and guards weren't needed to escort amyone.  The extra freedom was both a blessing and curse, as that meant anyone could come into your room to start trouble.  While Malekith and Capernicus stayed in their new cell, Turok went to the new cafeteria.  There, he spotted the mark with his arm in a sling.  He managed to drop into casual conversation that he was from Dagger Falls, and that he had a healer on his team back in their new cell who could take a look at the arm.  So, the mark, Phillup, came back with Turok where he and Malekith revealed their mission to Phillup while Malekith put his arm back into its socket.  Capernicus tried to stop Malekith and Turok from revealing their whole mission so fast, but he was promptly ignored.  Following Phillup's advice, Turok went to the quartermaster to bribe a dagger and a doorjam from him.  Luckily, this seemed a common practice, as the guards turned their backs when motioned by the quartermaster.

 

Meanwhile, that night Magnus picked the lock to their cell and tailed the dread warriors and quagroth to their escape tunnel.  It seemed to be the real deal, so the two of them decided to upgrade to the Palace the next day.  When they did, Turok introduced them to Phillup.  Magnus gave away our cover just as much as Turok had to Phillup, despite what Capernicus thinks is ample enough circumstantial evidence that Phillup cannot be trusted.  Phillup warned us that the escape tunnel the dread warriors found was often used to give hope to the gladiators, but that the real reason no one returned was that they were slain by waiting guards as sport on the other end.  He theorized that the only real escape was to be placed on a Zhent naval ship, and attempt an escape from there.  So more planning ensued, while Capernicus worried about not having seen our stablemaster since moving to the Palace and how Phillup wouldn't let anyone see the inside of his room, the only one on the cell block to have a built in keylock in the door.  Why do some people have the alignment stupid good instead of true good? 

 

 

Here's an interesting article on the connection between mind/body health. 

 

Mike treated to a China Super Buffet tonight, and for some reason I overate.  Now I'm tired and bloated.  Oh well, my medical diary for NFO needed more than the minor scrape from last week's bike spill anyway.  I knew when I should stop, yet I had two more plates after that.  I think it was partly because some of their food was so bad, I wanted to keep trying other foods to cover the bad food's taste.  All of the dough products were undercooked, from the pizza to the sugar-coated doughnuts.  Some things like the pineapple chunks were soaked in flavours for which my American tastebuds just didn't care at all.  And yet, all of their meats and vegetables were cooked very well.  Go figure.

 

I'm enjoying my introduction to the Second World.  It's a well crafted story.  The world is deeply layered; characters are well thought out and given true motivations, thoughts, and actions; we are introduced to each new idea with enough time to absorb it, with the next new idea introduced before our attention lapses; and overall I find myself having a hard time ending break and lunch times on time while reading this.  That's probably why I'm so disappointed when a slight editing mistake rears its ugly head.  Whoever edited this book didn't do a very careful job of it.  Hopefully future printings will not suffer this fate.  Regardless, I highly recommend that all of my friends go buy fifty copies of this book.  Well, not each of them.  Well, not unless they can somehow afford it.  You know what I mean.

 

Busy, busy, busy Paul.  It's less than four months until LepreCon XXXI.  I'll be here less and working on that more. 

 

So, this past weekend was another episode in Steve's D&D 3.0 campaign.  We found out from our stable master that we were scheduled to combat the giants' stable on the same day we were scheduled to fight the golemmaster's stable.  He didn't know which we would be fighting during the morning versus the evening, so we had to guess that the tougher fight against the golem(s?) would be second.  Sure enough, we fought a couple of giants.  Capernicus turned into Luxo first thing, but our group was so efficient that they died before I had the chance to do anything to them. 

 

Afterward we were rewarded with another trip to the cafeteria.  It was only our second or third time, and we didn't have much luck finding any information on our quarry.  After that, we ended up in a battle versus a clay golem.  It was tough.  Cap turned into an Annis in that fight, and made sure to flank the creature so that Turok could do some massive power attacks against it.  It easily took the whole party to take that creature down.  Hopefully it was worth it, as we bet all of our red chips on winning that match. 

 

Sunday I went to Imperial Outpost for some Living Arcanis action.  Chris ran a fun 3.5 version of Heart and Soul in the first slot at APL6.  Then, Ken ran a great A Pebble Upon Still Water in the second slot.  It turns out that Pebble is a mod that Chris wrote, and that he modeled one of the characters in it on how Christy would have played such a character.  That was kind of neat.  My group gave my character a tough time because Errol chose to be a gentleman to her, when they all wanted to sleep with her.  Dang, what's the point of having the Gentry feat if you can't have the opportunity to be gallant?  Don't answer, it a rhetorical question. 

 

Afterward, as I was already in the neighborhood I went to my grandparents' place.  They fed me cornbread from their new sandwhich maker and sent stuff that they dodn't want cluttering their house anymore with me and my mom (who was already over there).  Mom gave me a ride home with my newfound loot.  I think my grandparents are giving stuff away because they want to make sure the inheritance goes where they want it.  I know they weren't happy with how things went following Uncle Jim's death. 

 

Monday we had our LepreCon XXXI Program Team meeting, where Larry made it clear that I was expected to be Program Director for LepreCon XXXII and train my replacement at that convention.  So, anyone want to be an assistant program director for LepreCon XXXII and program director for LepreCon XXXIII? 

 

Tonight we had our first retail sales staff meeting in months.  We covered a lot of new policy changes and some new product options for customers.  I guess we can look forward to another meeting next month.  What it boils down to is that we'll all have more work, but especially Kelly (my boss) and I.  More on that later.  I just heard the DJ change which indicated that its midnight.  I should be going to bed now, even if I'm not tired. 

 

Ever read something about yourself in which you're not very proud, but can't deny?  *Sigh*  Thanks for the quiz, Jess! 

Iyov's First Quest, a free D&D Colouring Book!

 

So much for watching Buffy in chronological order.  Last week UPN45 aired episode 93, but last night's episode was episode 28.  Sure, it was an episode I hadn't seen either, but I was looking forward to finding our why Joyce appeared dead at the end of last week's episode.  Sure, I can read the episode transcripts, spoilers, or see them on video, but I'm in the habit of watching them Sunday night.  Oh well.  At least Angel was in chronological order. 

 

The other night I finally changed the different modules and trim colours.  The site is a little softer on the eyes.  The simple black and blood design was switched to pumice, blood, ruby, sienna, and apple.  Someday I'll take the time to produce a real banner, but not anytime soon. 

 

Sunday started off with our hiking group walking PV Mall in the pre-consumer hours.  Meera and Rudy did two standard laps around the mall, while Wayne and I did one lap walking forwards and one lap walking backwards.  After the second lap Meera needed something from Starbuck's, so we sat and listened to her stories.  Afterwards, we had breakfast at the 5 & Dinner where they were out of both soups and both mashed potatoes!  Luckily, when most of us were finished they brought creamy mashed potatoes to us for free to make up for it. 

 

After that, it was time to go to the Arizona Proving Ground at Game Depot.  I tried my new Sinister Scientists deck versus Jason's Assassin's Bounty deck.  He came out strong and I didn't.  In the final round I needed him to trigger an   so I could play .  This would have in turn allowed me to play a  to try and stop him.  I had no such luck. 

 

The second round saw my SS deck up against AJ's use of Jason's Purists deck.  The deck worked wonders here, doing everything it was supposed to do and more.  I only ever had two resources, so  never was played.  That was OK, because after his s kept bringing out s and picking off my characters I just brought in  without needing the MegaTank.  Then I played a couple of s, one with a Fusion Tank and the other with a .  With those it was cake to take my last two sites for the win.  I never even needed to play my  in order to refresh my hand, as he had spent too much on character buildup and character denial in previous turns. 

 

The third round saw me up against Harley, who was busy loading his Dragon Guns deck with new Two-Fisted Tales of the Secret War cards from the box he had just purchased.  Knowing that he knew what I was playing and that he was busy loading his deck with new cards, I switched to my Architect Guns deck.  It relies on  to swap low-level weapons for an Agony Grenade or some Sucker Rounds.  Knowing that I was switching my deck, he still retained his to see how the new cards would fare.  I never pulled any of my weapons, nor HO, but instead beat him through constant character denial in the form of multiple uses of  and a .  Good ol'  did the rest. 

 

After that, Mom and I attended mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel where they were saying goodbye to their Youth Minister at that mass.  I guess she's going to stay in the parish but start attending graduate classes at ASU.  From there the two of us went to Zoolights.  After that, I've been catching up on several weeks worth of E-mails.  Hopefully I can reply to everyone over the course of the week. 

Wow, I haven't earned a single point in the SWS in two months.  At least I'm finally listed in my subfaction, though.  Somehow I think that our PG isn't getting reported, because I notice that no one in the PG has gained a single point in those two months.  See?

 

Wish me luck, I built a new deck just now to utilize .   So what if I only received one this week with the latest ?  If I like it I can always use Power to buy more. 

 

I finally got tired of black as the background here and changed it to pumice.  I might change the trim sometime soon, too.  I'd do more, but who has the time?

 

I went to do dishes on Thursday, but when I reached under the sink for the dishsoap I discovered that the garbage disposal rotted out of place and tore the piping down with it.  So I don't have a kitchen sink effectively until such time as I can fix it.  It figures something would happen as soon as I finished the bathroom repairs.  It's always something with this house. 

 

Of course, at least I have one to call my own.  Every day in the neighborhood around work I am confronted with the fact that many people, either through poor choices or no fault of their own don't have any sort of shelter to call their own.  My heart goes out to them, but what can one do for the ones that continue to make choices that will insure that their status will never change?  There are quite a few of their numbers which don't see their addictions as a problem, instead choosing to deflect blame for their current situation on just about anything else.  So I just pray for them.  Some will hopefully turn their lives around, even if prayer won't reach all of them. 

 

Wow, look at the time.  All I wanted was to save a card list for the new deck, the SS.  I'd better get some sleep before my long day.  Night all!

 

 

I'm not that impressed by the advanced Star Wars:  Epic Duels rules Sean Jordan offers on his site. 

 

On Sunday, Mer and I went to see Polar Express:  An IMAX 3D Experience at the IMAX Theatre AZ Mills.  We were supposed to see it the next day, but I was lucky enough to start a six day work week that day instead. 

 

Afterward, I went to mass, where Father Milt had an excellent homily on the Epiphany.  That night I watched the Buffy/Angel back to back on KUTP, despite having work the next day. 

 

This week sees Bill, Lori, and Wayne's birthdays.  Happy birthday you folks if you ever find this.  Who knows, maybe you already have. 

 

 

Garfield's Twelve Days of Christmas

 

Well, they say a habit is formed within fourteen days, so let's hope my habit of writing regularly here can be transformed into writing every day period.  We'll see. 

 

On the 1st Steve ran his Forgotten Realms Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 campaign.  We were to start at noon, but it was more like 13:00 hours.  Even then, Smitty didn't show up for at least another half-hour after that.  First up, we had a day with two bouts.  The first bout at noon set us up against a plethora of undead, including a mummy, two huge-size zombies, two huge-size skeletons, and about a dozen dread warriors.  It was tough, but we were spelled-up enough between Malekith and Capernicus that we survived. 

 

The second bout at 16:00 hours pit us up against a clay golem.  With his damage reduction and what seemed to be an immunity to electricity, only Turok was able to even hurt it.  Unfortunately, he was doing enough to kill the weaker of us to Turok in damage each round.  The golem master had demanded the bout after Malekith has used major image to make it appear that the iron golem had joined us to combat the wizards.  Each round, an image of the golem master appeared in the arena and offered to let us surrender.  After half a dozen rounds he said that it was the final round he would make that offer.  We begrudgingly surrendered.

 

After the fight the quagroths were preparing to enter the arena while we were preparing to leave.  Their leader gave Turok a hard time, and it nearly came to blows.  Turok finally offered to meet their leader in one-on-one combat in the arena.  We took the next day off to heal up and watch the bouts.  We still failed to find our quarry.  Our stablemaster told Turok that he would not schedule a bout between him and the quagroth as it wouldn't be profitable.  He did offer to smuggle a weapon down to the stables for him, so that Turok could kill him down there.  Turok refused.

 

He also explained to us how we had shamed him in front of the golem master when we accepted his offer of surrender.  Many people die against the golems, but the shame done to our stablemaster was done as payback for the use of the image of the iron golem a few days before.  We lost the favour of the crowd, lost face for our stablemaster, and lost money for our stablemaster.  We able to console him with the fact that because we survived, we would continue to make more money for him in the future than he lost through this one bout.

 

We paused the game for dinner, which was the Domino's 555 deal.  We all chipped in for a mushroom, a pepperoni, and a ham.  Boy, what they call a medium pizza is really small.  Maybe their small pizzas are personal pan pizzas?

 

After the dinner break we dived back into the game.  The next day saw us only entering one bout at noon.  It was against Zhent naval mutineers, so we were going to be able to gain back our standing with the crowd if we defeated them.  Dang were they tough!

 

The first two rows of soldiers held longspears behind a shieldwall.  Each row was lead by a cleric with a signal whistle.  The back two rows were archers lead by a single cleric who also had a signal whistle.  We attacked their flank in order to avoid their set for charge.  The clerics started with prayer, kept up the barrage of spells from their while their archers attacked thebiggest threat each round and their spearmen attacked from 10 ' away.  Midway through the combat we had killed one cleric and a few soldiers from each row, while they dropped Malekith (for spelling our side up and her protective aura) and Turok (for dealing our massive amounts of damage so quickly).  Capernicus had to ignore the flaming sphere with which he had been chasing one of the clerics in order to go heal Malekith, who then in turn healed Turok.  He then helped to heal Turok, before turning into a bear and wrecking havok in the remaining forces.  Unfortunately, that dropped Capernicus until Malekith was able to take some goodberries from Turok over and feed them to stave off Capernicus's death.  Magnus had been awesome during the fight, deflecting arrows with his shortsword until they started to flee him.  Turin stayed away from melee, preferring to slay the archers with his own archery. 

 

So, when as we left the field barely alive but victorious, we ran into the quagroth.  Their leader once again tried to start something and used the fact that Turok wouldn't fight him to belittle him.  That ended up leading to conflict between Turin and Turok, as Turin belittled Turok in front of both the quagroths and us over the situation. 

 

Dang, my Disney's Christmas Singalong tape ended but I never heard the snap of the player setting the play button to off.  So I go to flip it over, and low and behold it still shows it playing.  I feared tape feed problems like the other night.  Instead, I turn it off and open it to find that the tape has completely wound up to one side.  The tape no longer connected the two wheels.  It now is wrapped around the other.  Add it to the list of ones I'll need to replace someday. 

 

Uh oh, on top of all that I'm nodding off here.  Time for bed!  Later. 

 

 

When two wrongs don't make a right, they do make a political party.  Thanks to Steve for the link. 

 

It's been another rainy week.  Some of our reservoirs are full again.  Water is being released from some of the dams, allowing water to return to our depleated water table downstream.  Tempe Town Lake had to deflate its dams to allow the Salt to flow, flushing the fish and other amenities down river. 

 

Meanwhile, the rain has reinforced some of my friendships.  Diana saw me riding my bike in the rain on my way to work yesterday and gave me a ride the rest of the way.  She was on her way to Tim's place.  I guess Tim had broke his forearm severely enough on Christmas day that they were still waiting on the swelling to go down before operating and putting a metal plate inside.  I guess he crashed a motorized skateboard, doing property damage in addition to hurting himself.  Not surprisingly he's put the board on sale.  Its illegal to operate one of those devises on public property, including streets, sidewalks, and parks so I'm curious as to where he was when it occurred.

 

Then today Steve called and offered to come and give me a ride home due to the weather.  I told him it was unneccessary, as it hadn't rained all afternoon and was not too bad out.  I thanked him and asked if I could call upon a ride in the future if I actually needed one.  I tried to avoid calling it a raincheck, for obvious reasons.  Odd thing was that once I passed Bell Road it was raining, and had obviously been doing so long enough that the streets were flooded.  I guess they were serious when they said localized storms. 

 

Meanwhile, the home could be doing better.  The back steps are rotted to the point that the middle stair is dangerous.  I have three leaks in the ceiling.  My stove and one oven burner won't light correctly.  At least my guest bathroom is finally completed.  I think its been almost two years in the making. 

 

Well, I'd better go reset the clocks.  I originally turned this computer on so I could get the time by which to set my clocks.  I'm assuming that this storm must have had the power out up here at some point today.  Night!

 

 

 

So, on the 11th Steve ran his FR D&D 3.0 campaign, like I mentioned.  Our team went up against a team of four wizards in the arena.  They were tough cookies.  They came out, already spelled up with mage armour and spider climb on themselves, and ran out to the tops of the four twenty-foot tall pillars in the center of the arena.  From there they peppered us with arrows until some of us proved dangerous, at which point they started casting spells upon us.  Tarin, our archer, was still recovering from his prior wounds and not with us (nor was his player, Smitty) so we didn't have much luck returning their conventional fire.  The others climbed the pillars and fought from a disadvantage while Cap changed into a harpy and fought them at their level.  Turok was finally able to successfully grapple his opponent, so he dropped the two of them from the pillar and pinned his to the ground.  Malekith cast a Wall of Force to connect two of the pillars together and allow adjacent combat at their level.  Eventually we finished the combat, but not until our game was a couple of hours past the DM's bedtime!  So not much roleplay that session. 

 

I missed the session on the 18th (my only in the whole campaign!), but I hear that Turok and Magnus each had solo fights as well as a duo fight while the rest of us recovered from the combat with the wizards.  Magnus fought some lizardmen and Turok a huge zombie.  Together they fought some quagroths. 

 

Meanwhile, in real life I fear for my Burl Ives holiday album, as the cassette tape is starting to not feed at equal speeds this evening.  That's how I lost Chant, Bridge Over Troubled Water, and The Division Bell last year.  They all started out like that and eventually wouldn't play at all.  Mr. Ives is one of my favourite performers, so losing one of his albums will be disappointing. 

 

Of course, I say that while people suffer and die in war, disease, and natural disaster worldwide.  Maybe I don't thank you enough for my blessings, God, but I do appreciate them. 

 

 

 

Boy, am I sorry about yesterday's forced entry.  I wanted to post every day of Christmas (just in case any readers haven't caught on yet), and I barely even understand what I wanted to convey yesterday.  Sometimes I'm just too tired to make sense.  I guess I must seem like that when I'm on the phone half-asleep as well. 

 

Anyway, no sleep deprivation induced entries for today.  Let's see.  On Friday, Trav confirmed that we'll be having a Shadowfist tournament on the 9th.  Wayne and Rudy want to try and still go for a morning hike, but I don't know if that'll work out.  Meanwhile, I haven't heard from Webb recently and wonder if our Sunday Paladium is really going to start up again now that the holidays are over.  If it does, I'm not sure what'll happen if Travis insists on this new switched schedule. 

 

Meanwhile, it looks like six day work weeks for me this month until we can get someone trained to do Mondays.  There's no overtime on this paycheck due to the holiday, but I'd better head to bed now so I can get up in time.  Too bad I didn't get a chance to mow the lawn this weekend.  I'll probably get a notice before I get the chance to mow it next.  Come to think of it my drycleaner isn't open on Sundays, so who knows when I'll next get my laundry either.  Oh well.  Like I wrote, I'd best get to bed.  Dang I hate thinking like that on a Sunday night.  It seems so unnatural.  So much for having time to catch up on things on the weekends.