OK, on the 10th Mike ran Star Trek:  Feng Shui again.  Melanie was wounded fairly severely, but she insisted that we continue.  We found a false floor, created by four small holoprojectors.  Miss Sprint said that her father often used them as false windows or picture frames.  So we went down the hole into a natural cavern.  We followed it to a lake.  We followed the passage through its underater portion until the lake opened into another chamber.  There, we met with some primatives in a jungle-type environment.  They knew where Dr. Sprint and his family was and led us to their village. 

 

There Miss Sprint and her family were happy rejoined.  Dr. Sprint was made aware of the urgency of his new quest, and he promised to be ready to go in the morning.  He had already promised the village elder that he would help him first.  Apparently he suffered from giantism (at ten feet tall!) and an overabundance of internal energies.  Every day he released red heat eyebeams into the pipes at the side of the chamber.  It heated the pipes which melted the ice, which turned to steam and raised to the top of the chamber where it recooled into the tropical rain effect.  Dr. Sprint was trying to find a away to have the equipment drain away the access energy permanently, instead temporarily. 

 

In the meantime we attuned to a sacred grove, had Melanie healed of her coruption from the hopping vampires, had dinner, and went to sleep for the night.  At dinner, we noticed that at least one of the villagers wasn't happy with the village elder's choice to be "healed" of his excess energy.  Apparently, the energy was infused through radiation a couple of millenia ago.  He hoped to get rid of the energy in order to be allowed to die of old age.  Some of his villagers were not happy with the idea of losing their idyllic living conditions.  We went to sleep unsure what horrible things were about to happen there. 

 

On the 11th Steve did run, but I'm already falling asleep here at the computer.  I'll recap that and tell you about this morning's fog some other time.  Night!

 

 

Slowly the TARDIS materializes onto the desk beside me.  All my colour-changing mug needs is a little soundcard!  Too bad that means that the Butterfinger Hot Cocoa is all gone.  I guess I could go make more. 

 

 

Wonder why I'm cold?  Well, it's still raining.  I was wetter when I arrived for work this morning than when I got home last night.  And, despite packing three sets of clothes so I could have a dry set on the way home (except for a helmet and biking gloves which were still soaked), I was even wetter and colder when I came home tonight than when I got to work this morning.  Hopefully this rain means that we'll be halting the advance of our drought, even if it'll take many more such rains to pull our way out of it.  Before this storm came through we were still over an inch under our annual rainfall average. 

 

I have a slow drip in the spare room's closest again.  What I really need is a bucket to catch the rain so I can permanently station the bucket there until I can get the roof fixed.  I can't get the roof fixed until I get my guest bathroom fixed.  Luckily, I think I might be able to get that finished fairly soon. 

 

So let's see.  I've seen quite a few good movies recently.  Bill and I saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow on the 29th at SSC Bell Canyon Pavillions.  The next night Rudy, Wayne, and I saw The Incredibles at AMC Desert Ridge 18 after dinner at Barro's Pizza. Then on the 13th Bill, Lando, and I watched The Incredibles again (well, it was their first time) at Harkins North Valley to see the Revenge of the Sith teaser trailer.  Finally, Kitty and Rusty treated Monte and I to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events at Harkins Christown followed by dinner at JB's as our Christmas gift from them.  When I'm not so busy I might review these fun films.

 

Wow, where does the time go?  It's time to go to bed yet again.  One of these days I'll feel caught up with my life....No, really!  ;^)

 

Thanks to Jada for this cute sprite quiz.  On a tangent, why doesn't Sprite use a sprite as its logo or mascot?

Mysterious, elegant, creative and calm

You are a sprite of the Water.

Creative and one of the most beautiful of sprites, you strike wonder and curiosity into the hearts and minds of all. Even though you are capable of attraction and seduction you are way above all that, you understand the true meaning of life and are very open and understanding of life's mysteries, most likely you are one of them. You are respectful of all ways of life and do not judge one due to their position or station in life. You are gifted in the ways of understanding and given the chance are usually full of good, wise advice but your not the type to take the stand and express such things. Your laid back nature can be troubling, you don't take many risks and prefer to keep things as they are. You are one of the most unique of sprites.

.::=What type of Mythical Sprite are you?=::. -With Anime Pictures and detailed answers-
brought to you by Quizilla

 

 

Yesterday I slept in, caught up on E-mail, paid some bills, took a couple of ink-stained shirts to the cleaners, chatted with Mer on the phone, and found the community office closed.  The sign on the door showed it closed Friday through Monday, in direct conflict with the notice in the December newsletter which stated that the office was closed Friday through Sunday.  I'm still waiting for an answer about whether the same thing will occur this upcoming Monday. 

 

Today a rainstorm came in during the afternoon and is still raging right now.  After a ten hour day at work, I chatted with my cousin Jess who's in town at my grandparents', rode home through the rain, and went grocery shopping.  I found a new candy bar called Take 5.  Because of the overtime which isn't (due to getting off early on Friday), I don't have much time here at home.  I'm skipping dinner and posting here before going to bed.  I'm determined to post here more often.  Have a good night everyone!

 

 

OK, let's see what I have to share tonight.  Mike ran Star Trek:  Feng Shui one Fridaythe 3rd.  We made our way to the shuttle, where we found out that the damage to the shuttle was too severe to be fixed on its own.  However, we might be able to use what we can salvage from our shuttle to repair Dr Sprint's shuttle.  We took what we could and followed Miss Sprint to her family's shuttle.  Lt. Cmdr. Law and Keoc fixed up the shuttle and drove it over to the Broadcast tower.  Keoc led our team up the tower to repair it, and we were able to then communicate between the USS Excaliber and Dr Sprint's shuttle.  We were told that we needed to find Dr Sprint faster, and that Starfleet's command was that any of us were to consider ourselves expendible at the cost of getting Dr Sprint off planet!

 

We headed back down the mine and explored the remaining levels.  Miss Sprint showed us where she hid from the aliens.  By taking the ventilation systems, we we able to access tapped out mine shafts that we otherwise walled off at the elevator shafts.  From the art and other items found in the area, it was obviously a secret recration place for the slaves that worked the mines.  We decided that if it was good enough for the slaves to hide from Klingons, and for the young human to escape the maurading aliens, then it would make a great hiding place for us, too.  We set up some traps which we made sure we could disarm only by those of us there knowing how and where they were each set up, then agreed to flee back to there if anything bad happened.  The traps should prevent the place becoming unsafe in the meantime.  We hoped. 

 

Eventually, we ended up exploring the final (and incomplete) level, number eighty-two.  There, we were attacked by hopping vampires!  We found that they were immune to our phasers, and regenerated from out slashing weapons.  Luckily, the acid grenades seemed to counteract the regeneration and we finally defeated them. 

 

Because of GenCon SoCal, we didn't have Steve's FR D&D game on the 4th.  Anyway, it's late again.  Have a good night!

 

Thanks to Trollgod for the following cool quiz!

 

 

For the holidays, those that don't have a copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special, here's the transcript.

 

I guess it's not too surprising that I'm a month behind on recapping my life.  On Friday my parents, grandparents, and I went to Christmas Eve mass at Our Lady of the Valley.  We ran into Father Milt as he was leaving from presiding over the previous mass.  Father Ciprian gave a very scholarly homily, leaving him totally out of touch with a large part of the congregation which started talking amongst each other, shifting in their seats, et cetera. 

 

Afterwards my grandparents hosted a party where we exchanged gifts, had various goodies my grandmother prepared, and otherwise enjoyed each other's company.  The next day my parents hosted a dinner out at their place with the same cast of characters plus Jacob.  All in all a good holiday with family.

 

Today Rudy, Wayne, and I went hiking the 306 loop at Shaw Butte.  Afterwards we ate lunch at La Parrilla Suiza #4.  It was really good Mexican-style food.  After we parted company I went to mass where Father Milt gave a homily comparing the dreams of Joseph which led him to name his son and move his family to the dreams all parents have which lead them to the important family effecting decisions they must make. 

 

Anyway, I'm tired out.  Have a good night everyone!

 

 

 

Well, I've had a lot that I've wanted to record for posterity here, but I've been too busy obviously.  So I'll try to cover what I can here and hopefully catch up before the end of the Christmas season.

 

Around the time of my last post, I had been reading a lot of negative commentary about blogs in Web articles, listservs, message boards, and other weblogs.  It had me thinking about my own site here and weblogs in general.  I'm not offended by teenage hijinks being posted online for public consuption as others are.  Nor do I think that only those weblog sites that are done by professionals are the only ones worth reading.  I think it's marvelous whenever anyone choses to write down what they think and feel, reguardless of whether in private or public, handwritten or typed.  We should be encouraging people, the future generations especially, to write rather than discourage them.  People who write are engaging themselves more in life than those who don't. 

 

Even if no one reads the public posts today, what about future generations of scholars looking for a glipse into our everyday lives?  What about having a record for yourself as you get older and futher removed from the activities and thoughts of today?  What about offering your own decendants an opportunity to know you as you were?  These are all the reasons I have kept a journal all of these years, and why when given the opportunity I jumped to public display on the internet. 

 

Recently I finished reading Roughing It by Mark Twain.  It's a log of his life from July 1861 to Spring 1867.  Some of it is verbatim from the journals he kept at the time.  This is a book which has seen reprinting many times over the decades, as have the other books Samuel Clemmons wrote about different segements of his life.  Imagine what a resource it would have been to have his weblog saved in perpetuity on the Internet?  We could read the post replies made over the decades, showing how our society has or has not changed in its views since his time. 

Sure, public posting has changed what I write in some ways.  Every once and I while I would write what material possessions I desired at the time, then after a birthday, Christmas, or other such opportunity for presents I would compare my loot to what I had said I had wanted.  It was a fun exercise.  However, I don't dare do it here, for fear that people would feel required to obtain such things for me.  I don't want my posts to be potential shopping lists, that's not what those old entries of mine were intended for.  And I still refuse to have a Private or Protected post, or create a second journal either online or elsewhere. 

 

Also, I know I post more about my rp sessions than I used to, solely because post repliers have expressed an interest in them.  Or at least I do when I actually get around to making a post about them at all.  When I don't do them I feel guilty, even though I know the people who read this aren't going to be upset if I don't.  It's silly, I know.

 

But all that doesn't mean that I'm going to give this up, nor do I think that the apparent weaknesses of this medium outweigh the strengths of it.  In fact, the fact that people are interested in replying at all encourages me in the belief that future generations have a right to the public display of my thoughts today.  And yes, sometimes the immediate feedback can be helpful.  That's something one won't get if one's writings aren't public. 

 

You are Dungeon Master, the Guide. A very powerful
wizard, you have lots of knowledge but can only
give away bits of it at a time.

Which Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

 

You've gotta love bards....  thanks to Steve Burge who posted the link here.

 

For those of you who are interested, here's a review of the newfound bane of my existance.  You'll see, that yes, it was worth mentioning yet again.

 

Cool, now we're a little more like lj, where everyone wants me to be rather than here.  And we still have cool stuff that they don't.  Hah!  I like the new profile pics next to comments option.  Way to go Xanga crew!

 

Black Friday was a slow day at work, not surprising as none of our locations are situated to get traffic from the stores which advertise the good Black Friday specials.  The next day was just as slow.  Those two days are notoriously slow each year because everyone is at the sales and we really can't afford to offer a comparable sale.  Sales have picked up since, with our usual holiday seasonal increase in gift certificates, GPS and accessories, software, globes, and framed maps. 

 

After work on Black Friday Monte ran his Star Trek Feng Shui campaign.  We went to the abandonned Klingon mine searching for the phenomenologist and his family.  We insisted on exploring in our environmental suits, insisted on not breaking into smaller groups, and otherwise fought the gold shirts with us who wanted to make the usual horror movie mistakes.  We fought some rabid targs, saw evidence of a parasitic aliens who gestated in the guts of their humanoid victims before exploding out of their chest, and evidence of larger aliens which caused severe claw-like damage.  Severe acid marks were splashed in some areas which ate through material previously unknown for being able to be taken out by acid. 

 

We checked level by level until we found the youngest of the family, who was in such a severe mode of fear that she attacked any of us that tried to talk to her, much less approach her.  Luckily, my security officer was able to sneak up on her and disable her phaser.  We took her back to our shuttle for Kitty's medical officer to check out, but along the way ran into the mine's automated systems (which obviously were designed to keep the slave labourers from escaping).  I fell asleep somewhere around then, but I guess we lost a few people during the situation. 

 

I set Lord Vader to give me another wake up call before work and received it on time!  Way cool.  After work Steve ran his Forgotten Realms game, for which I am so far behind in recapping.  This was the start of the new storyarc, so I'll just restart from there.  So, yes, Saturday was a better day.  Thanks for the wellwishes. 

 

We started in the gladiator pits of Zhentil Keep fighting some form of sentient undead.  After that battle, we (as players) returned to the point where we last left our characters, who had been planning to get arrested on trumped up charges and sold to a Zhent ally who would put us in the galdiatorial pits.  We left all behind in Daggar Falls and disguised ourselves as mercenary caravan guards and succeeded in getting arrested and sold into gladitorial slavery. 

 

Our Zhent ally has no idea why we are there.  He informed us that he'll give us the most leeway he can without losing credibility, and that the more we won in the arena the more leeway he could give us without others questioning.  He also told us that he'll schedule us for as many or as few fights as we want.  He warned us that he can put us against some opponents whose owners he need not fear, but against opponents who are more powerful he'll have less control over the situation.  Also, should we come to the attention of anyone too powerful they could likely force a buyout.  Just the kind of worries we need.

 

Before going on the mission Capernicus had to atone with Lurue for the deal he had made with Valor which led to the death of Kor and the successful recovery of the Eye of the Dragon.  She once again began to grant his spell requests after the atonement process, but then he had to give up all of his animal companions in order to prevent their capture by the Zhents when he went undercover.  So he's still underpowered for his level.  In fact, while others of the group are cheered in his group, Cap is booed and even has shoes thrown at him! 

 

Meanwhile, Malekith is starting a relationship with the resident bully gladiator that even the Quartermaster warned her about getting entangled with.  She spells him up before combat, and he gives her special food tokens for the mess hall.  The other gladitorial teams aren't happy with her, nor us because of it.  Apparently, he's a free minotaur who acts as his own agent.  In addition to being the only free person who fights in the gladitorial pits, he's the people's champion.  If anyone threatens that possition he usually demands a match against them and wipes them out.  He's powerful enough that he could probably whip us all with his hands tied behind his back, so I hope that whatever Malekith's plan is that it doesn't backfire on us. 

 

We had another battle against even greater number of the same undead legions, which apparently get turned into skeletons after they fall in the arena.  They get culled from Zhent battlefields to serve again in unlife.  Gee, what fun for them.  They and a few different teams of various monstrous humanoids share our cell block, so we're slowly getting to know them.  How ironic that this happened right after watching Angel #16:  The Ring.  Somehow I doubt Steve had watched the same before coming up with the new scenario, but who knows. 

 

All we have to worry about is finding our Daggerdale deep cover agent with whom we have lost contact, determine whether he has been compromised, and either extract him and us or kill him and extract us--all this while having no equipment, almost no freedom, and in the center of the capitol of the enemy empire.  No problem!  <rolls eyes>

Laughter is the best medicine. And it looks like you are skilled at using humor as a remedy for what ails you, or your patients, for that matter. Like Gaylord (Greg) Focker from the film, you've got a finely-developed funny bone and you're not afraid to use it. With your disposition, you can lighten even dark moods and more importantly, put a smile on patients' faces.
Like your nurse counterpart (who, let's not forget, endures constant ribbing for being a male nurse), you're proud of your profession and enjoy helping people. You feel fulfilled when you care for others and maybe even get them to laugh, too — even if they're laughing at, not with, you. So keep lifting people's spirits. It's sure to give a lift to their health, too. And that's what nursing is all about.

 

Lord Vader + Heidi Klum is a video worth watching before or after getting a cool wakeup call from Lord Vader himself! 

 

Today was not a good day.  Yes, it was worth mentioning that before going to bed.  Night.

Dogs and cats eat human remains in Iraq. 

 

So, the malls already have Santa set up to take pictures with him, Salvation Army is already ringing their kettle bells, and at least one local radio station is already set to holiday music 24/7 with prerecorded holiday wishes from soldiers overseas.  It's not even Advent.  It's not even American Thanksgiving.  The slow creep of the retail holiday season seems as if it won't rest until Canadian Thanksgiving becomes the new start of the season.

 

Here's my Xanga Metro.  Don't expect me to join it any time soon, as I would have joined a local blogring if I wanted to be connected into random local people. 

 

DeAnne, Wayne, and I had a Hogwarts Live Action meeting on the 10th.  We finished plotting out each time block of the weekend, and came up with a list of locations needed and when for submission to Ivan.  

 

Monte, Rusty, and I played The Hobbit on the 12th.  Jason, Kendal, Monte, and I played Steve's FR campaign on the 13th and had steak and chicken for dinner.  The 13th also saw the death of my friend Marcella, which I already commented on here. 

 

On the 14th Father Gene gave a homily which warned us that our expenses have increased and our income has decreased along with the decrease in mass attendance.  This didn't really surprise me much, but you could tell it had Father Gene surprised that the parish had reached such a point.  Moon Valley isn't what it used to be in its day.  The Catholic Church is still dealing with the fallout with its various recent scandals, which has discouraged some from participation.  That's led to less people in church each year these past three or four years.  I guess our parish was so caught be surprise that we had to cancel our lawn maintenance crews and make our staff maintenance people take care of it.  We also had to drop the leases on some office equipment and lower the payments on our parish hall loan. 

 

The 15th was the LepreCon XXXI Program Team meeting, with Larry, Mike, Margie, and a new guy, Kevin who was recruited from TusCon XXXI earlier this month.  He wants to learn Program, and what better way to learn than show up to our meetings.  Hopefully he'll be a good resource. 

 

After work on the 16th I went to the viewing, where I finally met Figment.  He had a certain magical prescence about him that is rare in humanity.  I could see why people would become fascinated in him.  I also met Marcella's Mom, who seemed relieved that so many friends had turned out for the occassion.  They had this creepy atrium behind the open casket.  A coy pond in the reception room of a funeral home is one thing, but an atrium as the backdrop of a viewing room is just totally different.  While the flowing water and darting fish were calming, the fluttering birds and swaying branches were distractingly creepy.  Yet everyone else there seemed to really find that peaceful.  To each there own, you know? 

 

I didn't go to the funeral on the 17th because so many people were off work the previous two days due to sickness.  After work I stopped by Wayne's to watch Jack and Bobby.  He wanted to see what I was seeing in the episodes, so during commericals I would point out some of the different connections.  I think he was catching on by the end there.

 

Monte finally ran his Star Trek (powered by Feng Shui) campaign for Kitty, Rusty, and I on the 19th after a long hiatus.  My character was back to being a Betazed, but Kitty's was still stuck transformed into an Andoran.  Meanwhile, because the same amount of time passed in game as out of game, our characters have adapted to being ten years out of synch as best as they can.  However, the ship they are assigned to has mysteriously changed from the Titan to the Excalibur in a way identical to their racial shifting.  We were introduced to Melanie Law, head engineer, number one, and love interest of the ship's captain.  She apparently is a brilliant engineer but one who would rather see results than follow Star Fleet procedure.  We fought a plague of zombies on a planet, but were called away on an emergency mission before confirming that our attempted cure had worked. 

 

We headed into Klingon space to an abandonned mining colony where an archaologist  who specialises in phenomonology had disappeared. 

 

Yesterday my mother and I attended mass at Our Lady of the Valley before going to my grandfather's birthday party.  Father Milt (yes, the same.  He's a busy priest.  His day job is priest for St Joseph's hospital) gave a great homily in which he took the message of Christ the King and the recent Afgani and US and upcoming Iraqi and Palestinian elections and tied them all together. 

 

My grandfather turns seventy-seven this week, so we had a lasagna dinner and apple pie for lunch.  Afterwards we played Mexican Train Dominoes, Golf (a card game which uses two standard fifty-two card poker decks), and some game who's name I don't recall which required three standard fifty-four card poker decks.  However, the reason I don't recall the game's name is because it was so obviously a Sorry! knockoff it wasn't funny.  The only things it lacked were slides on the gameboard and quality production values, or it would have been Sorry! only renamed.  After that we had a ham sandwhich dinner with peach pie before going home. 

 

Today I was able to get my bicycle out of the shop and did a bunch of chores.  But now I'm tired so I think It'll turn in to bed. 

 

I haven't owned or extensively played any of the video games listed and they don't have a none of the above answer, so I can't get the quiz to work for me, but for any other Star Wars fans who may have more video game experience than I, try this quiz out:
What Colored Lightsaber Would You Have?
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