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A Discovery Of Witches

2012-02-02T13:52:00.002-05:00

A Discovery Of Witches is about a witch who discovers something. Go figure. Actually, it's about a witch named Diana, who doesn't want to be a witch. She wants to be a historian that studies ancient alchemical texts and while she is in the process of doing research for a speech that she has to give, she accidentally summons an ancient book that is protected by a spell. This, of course, attracts the attention of many powerful creatures, who want the book for themselves.

The book begins in London, in modern times and there are 3 different types of creatures in the world that Deborah Harkness, the author, has created. There are witches, vampires, & daemons, as well as the humans. It was decided, at some point in the past, that the creatures must segregate themselves from each other because when they co-mingle, the humans tend to notice them more. When Diana breaks the spell on the Ashmole 782 (the name of the ancient book that everyone wants) the creatures start congregating at the Bodleian library, hoping to get their hands on the book.

Matthew, a charming and handsome genetic scientist that also happens to be a doctor and a vampire, also wants the book but something happens in his pursuit of it. He and Diana fall in love. Remember that pesky rule about creatures being segregated? Yeah, that because something of an issue when Matthew and Diana refuse to stop seeing each other. At this point, the plot involving the Ashmole 782 almost takes a back seat to the love story and the big bad evil guys are no longer chasing them for the book but because of their forbidden romance.

I thought the story was interesting up until the love-story was introduced. At that point, the story was almost like a "grown up" version of Twilight. The teen angst was missing but the head-over-heels, vomit-inducing romance was not. The male vampire was insanely overly-protective and the female witch, while not as submissive & self-destructive as Bella, was still weirdly ok with being ordered around by this man that she had just met.

I wish the love story could've been toned down a bit more. Although, I guess it is an important part of the book because the main characters are trying to change rules and traditions that have been in place for centuries. I'd almost say that the love story and the adversity they face as a result of their romance is a social commentary because of the way gay marriage is viewed in America but I don't know if that was the author's intent.

I will read book 2 when it comes out because I know I can get it from the library and because I want to know what happens to Matthew and Diana. If I had to rate the book on a scale of 1 - 5, I'd give it a 3.

Souls For Smuggler's Shiv #4

2012-02-02T12:10:00.001-05:00

After resting for the night, we made our way back to the cannibal's camp and reached it without further incident. We decided to scout the camp to see if we could find a way in without alerting all of the cannibals to our presence. There were 4 cannibals sitting around the fire pit and a few buildings around the camp.

Our plan was to put the cannibals at the fire to sleep and Jerzy was going to set fire to the hut closest to us if anyone tried to come out. While we were waiting for Jerzy to get into place, a monkey came out of the hut and Jerzy decided to shoot at it, missing twice. The monkey started to scream and ran inside the hut. The witch came out and Astrid was able to put the 4 cannibals at the fire to sleep before they could join the fight. Jerzy & Chin went after the witch, while Marcus kicked a hole in the wall of the witch's hut so that he could save a prisoner that she had tied up.

Astrid followed Marcus through the hole and was able to come out the door of the hut and flank the witch. The witch tried to hit us with some creepy, necromantic spells but she either missed or we made our saves so the witch became desperate and called on 4 skeletons to help her. Marcus used his smite evil ability on her and knocked her down and Astrid grabbed the witch's staff and used it to control the skeletons.

At this point, 13 more raging barbarian cannibals show up and Chin decides to take the witch's head and throw it at them to try and intimidate them. It's a good thing he did because the witch wasn't really dead and she was trying to bluff us. Astrid commanded the skeletons to go and fight the cannibals and we were able to kill a few of them. The barbarians weren't raged for very long and once they came out of it, we were able to subdue them and lock them in one of the huts.

We rescued 3 of our NPCs (poor Ishirou was already on the fire, being cooked for dinner) and our new PC, Nerez, a half-elf wizard. Now we need to figure out if we are going to investigate the Pit of the Mother to see what Ieana was doing down there & if we are going to pursue her, or if we're just going to try and find our way off the island. I want to find Ieana to kick her ass and I also want to explore the rest of the island before we leave the island but I don't know if the rest of the group wants to do that.

Because Astrid was able to use the witch's staff (which was evil and Astrid had to make a will save, that she succeeded at) the witch class is now open to her. I decided to go ahead and multi-class, so now she is a level 2 savage skald/level 1 witch. If I had used the staff to call my familiar, it would've given me +5 to my caster level, along with several other abilities. It was very, very, very tempting to do that but after thinking about it, I decided not to. My reasoning was that the staff was tied to some power or spirit on the island and that it was a) evil & b) going to hurt us in our attempts to leave the island.

Astrid is a "normal" witch but she was able to call a really cool familiar. It's one of the lizard creatures on the island that uses electricity in it's attack. It gives Astrid a DR 5/electricity and adds 2d8 to any electric spell that she casts. The creature also gives her a +2 to her stealth checks.

Mix CD - 01/29/12

2012-01-29T15:43:00.000-05:00

1. The Trucks - Titties
2. Metric - Gold Guns Girls
3. Cults - Abducted
4. Ben Harper - Morning Yearning
5. Blood Red Shoes - When We Wake
6. The Constellations - Perfect Day
7. Parachute - Something To Believe In
8. Gotye _ Somebody That I used TO KNow
9. Trent Rezonr _ Immigrant Song
10. Kleerup feat. Lykke Li - Until We Bleed
11. Agualung - Strange & Beautiful
12. Foster the People - Call It What You Want
13. Ke$ha - Crazy Girl
14. Ladyhawke - My Delirium
15. LCD Soundsystem - Drunk Girls
16. LMFAO - Sexy & I Know It
17. The Cure - Underneath The Stars (Renholder Remix)
18. Pendulum - Witchcraft
19. Le Tigre - Phanta
20. The Airborne Toxic Event - Strange Girl

Souls For Smuggler's Shiv #3

2012-01-22T10:20:00.000-05:00

Astrid was seriously hurt so she took some of the potions that we found on the ship and was able to get her Dex back up to 9 and her Con up to 10 but it was still a serious impediment. We decided to take the NPCs inland and try to set up some sort of shelter for the night. Jerzy and Sasha (NPC) were able to find a tree big enough to support the 9 of us and by using planks from the ship, we built a temporary shelter.

That evening, we saw the dead rise from the sea, filling the night with a ghostly luminescence. We were far enough away from the water so the dead did not notice us and they went about the night crawling over the ships, performing the same routines they had in life. Jerzy and Astrid performed a song together and during their performance, a large winged creature dropped a dead goat into our campfire, which we ate.

We went over the Captain's log the next day and discovered that the Captain had become obsessed with Ieana and that he had switched the course of the ship to this island at her request. It was decided that we should explore the island to try and find a way off & to hopefully find the Captain or Ieana to kick their asses...errr...question them.

Instead, we found a hut that contained a yellow musk creeper and one of it's zombies. Chin, Jerzy, & Marcus were all infected w/the creeper's spores but Astrid was able to throw oil on the plant and she got Jerzy to set it on fire. Fortunately, we had found some berries from the viper nettle plant and it cured the guys of the creeper's deadly disease.

We also met a creature named Pezock who turned out to be friendly. She invited us into her home and after singing a song with Jerzy, declared that they were now married. We decided to take her back to our camp, only to discover that the cannibals on the island had invaded it. They killed Gelick (NPC) and kidnapped the rest. We had to rescue them so we made our way to the camp that Pezock said was to the south of us. On our way there, Jerzy spotted one of the cannibals and fired an arrow at him, sending him fleeing. We went up to the cannibal's lookout to investigate and ran into him and 4 of his friends.

Marcus advanced to meet them, while the rest of us held back and the raging barbarians knocked him down. Astrid put 2 of the cannibals to sleep and ran forward to try and help Marcus but she was also knocked down. Fortunately, Pezock is a bad ass and she helped Jerzy & Chin kill the barbarians. Astrid & Marcus were stabilized and healed and we went back to Pezock's home to rest and regroup for the night.

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #18, 19, 20

2012-01-20T22:05:00.000-05:00

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #18: "Have you ever "cheated" on a die roll/random chance outcome, or looked up a quest solution on a fan site? Why or why not? If yes, was it worth it?" - Reverb Gamers

Nope. But there have been many times where I have wanted to cheat. It's especially tempting on a night when I'm rolling really bad and I just want one success! But in the long run, it makes the game less fun for everyone if there is one character who always makes every skill check and hits with every attack roll. One of the things that makes the game so much fun is the unpredictability of it and when you do succeed, it makes it even sweeter. Especially if it's a critical success! And sometimes the failures help to make the game more fun because they encourage creative thinking. So you didn't make that disable device check? Find a different way to open the door/break the trap.

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #19: What's the weirdest character you've ever played? How did you end up with him/her/it?

The weirdest character that I ever played has to be the Malkavian vampire that was obsessed with babies. I was playing Vampire: The Masquerade while I was pregnant with my first child and I got the idea that my character was made a vampire while she was pregnant. Malkavians always have some sort of derangement that they start out with and so I decided that the loss of her child is what drove her crazy and she was obsessed with babies after that. As a result, she would ambush pregnant women at night and rip the babies from their wombs. Sometimes, she'd steal babies and she would carry them around but she never remembered to feed them so they would always die and she would be carrying around a dead baby. Eventually, the other vampires would get tired of the smell so they'd take it when she wasn't looking or she'd put it down somewhere and forget where she left it.

The guys in my Vampire group that it was the most fucked up character ever.

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #20: What was the most memorable character death you've ever experienced? What makes it stick with you?

This is a really weird character to remember but it was one of the first that I had played with my gaming group. It was a halfling bard named T'angela (she was based on the character Olive Ruskettle from The Finder's Stone Trilogy books). I can't remember what campaign we were playing or what level she was but we were ambushed by a bunch of vrocks. The vrock has 4 natural attacks and if it hits with all 4, it had the special ability: rend, which allows it to rip it's victim in half. So we have a bunch of vrocks coming at us and one attacks T'angela and hits all 4 times, then rips her in half. I don't think I had been playing her for very long but it was such a brutal attack that I remember it fondly.

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #16, 17

2012-01-17T22:03:00.000-05:00

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #16: "Who was the most memorable foe you've ever come up against in a game? How did you beat him/her/it? Or did you?" - Reverb Gamers

I'd have to say that this is a toss up between Ashardalon and Tyranthraxus. Both are definetly BBEGs of epic proportions and we had to go through some epic quests to gain the tools (and levels) needed to defeat them. With Ashardalon, the thing that made his demise the most memorable was that Rob sacrificed his most beloved character, Raven, in order to defeat him. I've talked about this game before, but suffice it to say, Raven was an evil Arch-wizard who was on the path of redemption. She had been swayed from her path many times but she always found her way back. In the very end, when she was in the grips of the evil dragon, she chose to break her magical staff and the resulting backlash destroyed him (I think in 3.5, there were tables that you would role randomly on for destroying magic items. I'm not sure if Pathfinder has those because we haven't come across destruction of a magic item yet.) Raven finally reached her atonement through her willing self-sacrifice and ended up saving the Forgotten Realms.

The thing about Tyranthraxus that was so fun was that my little halfling rogue, Blackberry, gained 8 levels from draining the Pool of Radiance (leveling up is always fun). The battle was so freaking hard and I thought that we were going to die many, many times but we were able to work together as a team and we defeated the evil demi-god. Well, Blackberry and Samsung the dwarf and Upton, the human wizard worked together as a team. Edrick, our elven paladin kept throwing his weapons and falling asleep and getting eaten. He was no help at all. I really liked this campaign because I've read all of the books in The Finder's Stone Trilogy and it was really fun to add my own chapter to the story (it's supposed to take place after the books).

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #17: What was the best reward you've ever gotten in a game? What made it so great? How much do you need tangible rewards (loot, leveling, etc.) to enjoy a game

My halfling, Blackberry, gaining 8 levels for draining the Pool of Radiance was pretty damn sweet. It made her 18th level and they were all in rogue so she had some pretty kick ass abilities. Playing a high level character is always a lot of fun. In the game that I'm currently playing, my character just took a level in witch and she gained a pretty awesome familiar. It's a little lizard creature (can't remember the actual name but I'm calling him Chompy) and through it my character gains DR 5/electricity, +2d8 to any spell that has electricity, & +2 to stealth.

Once, I was playing a character that I thought was a human wizard but it came out during the game that she was actually a fey creature. Randy, the DM, took a facet of my back story (she was the only dark-headed girl in a family of all boys with blonde hair) and said that my character was actually the result of a liaison my mother had with a fey. I got to change my stats and add some cool abilities to my character.

I like the rewards that the DM thinks to personalize towards each player, like my witch's familiar or allowing me to play a fairy creature. I like the little touch of whimsy that my DM's create because it keeps me invested in the story and it helps to draw me in. Finding magic items is always a cool thing but when the DM adds a little something extra to it because they know you will appreciate it makes it much more exciting!

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #13, 14, & 15

2012-01-15T14:38:00.000-05:00

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #13: "Who's the best GM/storyteller/party leader you've ever had? What made him/her so great?" - Reverb Gamers

I've had 2 really great DM's since I've started playing D&D. Rob and Randy played in the same group and they would take turns running a different campaign every few months or so. When I joined the game, Randy was running it and he was really invested in the story. The other guys were all playing characters that they had started from first level and Randy was running a story from a module but he was using it to weave in parts of a story that he was creating on his own, that had bits and pieces from games he had played with a different group.

Robbie has a great gift for story telling and adds flavor to any story he tells. It's one of the things that makes his games so exciting. He also runs from modules but you can never count on him using everything that is in the book, because he likes to add his own bits and pieces to the story. It's one of the reasons that I didn't mind playing in his current campaign, even though I've already been through most of that module. I know that he's going to change it and what might have been important the first time around might not be this time.

One thing that they both do is that they take their players personal wishes into account. Robbie has let me play a pixie and Randy has made my character a fey creature because they both know that I love that sort of thing. Neither one feels bound by any sort of rules when it comes to making the game fun for the players.

"REVERB GAMERS 2012, #14: What kinds of adventures do you enjoy most? Dungeon crawls, mysteries, freeform roleplaying, or something else? What do you think that says about you?"

I like a good combination of all 3. I've played in games that were mostly dungeon crawls and while that is fun at first, it gets really boring after a while. The same thing can be said about to much role playing - all of that talking gets to be boring after a while.

I guess maybe it says that I have a short attention span and need a lot of variety to keep me entertained!

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #15: "People often talk about the divide between what happens "in game" and "in real life." Do you maintain that divide in your own play, or do you tend to take what happens to your character personally? Why?"

I'd like to think that I can keep "real life" seperate from "in game" but there have been a few times where I think that the two have gotten mixed. Of course, this is totally from my perspective but there were a few times where I had a personal issue with another person and it seems like we would tend to fight more in the game. It's hard not to take things personally at times and I've learned that the only thing that I can do is to not get upset during the game and talk it after the game. If there really is an issue then something has to be done to resolve it because it makes the game uncomfortable for everyone involved.

Souls For Smuggler's Shiv #2

2012-01-15T09:22:00.000-05:00

Astrid, Jerzy, & Chin started this session on the deck of the shipwrecked Jenivere, hoping to find answers to our current situation. Our paladin, Marcus, was waiting on the rocky cliffs above our ship, ready to pull us to safety should we need it.

The ship had been broken in half when it crashed upon the rocks and Jerzy and Chin climbed up on one side, while my character was on the other. Astrid had been lowered down upon the mast and she had to crawl across it to reach the deck. Since the ship was broken in 2, she was able to see into the lower levels and she noticed the corpse of one of the sailors that had been tangled up in a hammock, with a knife in his back. Astrid jumped across the 10 ft. gap and joined the other two on the other side of the deck.

Chin & Astrid decided to go below deck to see if they could find anything and Jerzy stayed up on the top deck (because Scott wasn't there yet and we didn't want to take control of his character). We found the Captain's Quarters and all of his loot, plus the stuff that belonged to our NPC cleric. As we were leaving we noticed a huge sea scorpion on the other side of the ship that was trying to get through a closed door. Chin wanted to use Astrid as bait to lure the sea scorpion to our side, while he went to the top deck and jumped across to the other side. He wanted to shoot one of the ballistas at the creature.

Unfortunately, Astrid didn't really like the idea of being used as bait and as we argued over our strategy, the sea scorpion noticed us and jumped across the gap to eat us. We backed up to avoid being eaten and Astrid tried to shoot at the scorpion with her crossbow but missed & shot Chin in the back instead (I didn't have the precise shot feat yet). We were able to retreat back into the captain's quarters and the sea scorpion couldn't get to us because it was too big to fit down the hallway.

Scott showed up during this encounter so he had Jerzy shoot at the sea scorpion with the ballista and made a critical hit to pin the creature's claw to the deck. Chin and Astrid ran to the top deck and the creature dove into the sea, only to leap out and attack us again. It cornered Astrid and attacked her, forcing her to make a fortitude save or be poisoned. In Pathfinder, you have to make two consecutive saves to stop the effect but Astrid failed all of her saves (6 of them). By the end of the encounter, she had a Dex of 3 and a Con of 2. If either save had reached 0, she would've died.

Marcus climbed down the cliffs when he saw that we were in trouble and Jerzy swooped down from the sails to rescue Astrid from the sea scorpion. Once the creature was defeated, we finished searching the ship, to find the cook & the first mate dead, both of them covered with what looked like snake bites. Astrid found some maps and they were able to determine where they were at in relation to where their ship was supposed to dock. Astrid also used her bardic knowledge to recall that this area had tried to be colonized and there were temples underground dedicated to something called "The Eater Of Knowledge".

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #10, 11, &12

2012-01-12T14:10:00.003-05:00

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #10: H'ave you ever played a character originally from a book/TV/movie? How did the character change from the original as you played? If not, who would you most like to play?" - Reverb Gamers

I have not ever played a character from a book/TV/movie but I have played in a very established book setting. If you have ever read the Dragonlance books, it's pretty established that certain main characters are going to die and certain other things are going to happen. So when we played a campaign in the Dragonlance RPG, we were on a very strict timeline, where certain things were GOING to happen, whether we wanted them to or not.

The same thing goes for the campaign that we played in the Star Wars Saga RPG. There were times that we were trying to change the course of events and in the end, our actions actually helped to bring them about. It was really interesting the way our DM would take the established story and work our game into these tiny holes so that it was one continuous narrative. He would even go so far as to have us interact with some of the main characters i.e. Darth Vader or Ladonna in the Dragonlance RPG.

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #11: "Have you ever played a character that was morally gray, or actually evil? Why or why not? If yes, did you enjoy it?"

We have started a few campaigns where we are all playing evil characters but they never seem to be a long term thing. The most memorable was probably the Drow game that we played in Forgotten Realms 3.5e. We were members of a lesser house and we were trying to raise the status of our house within the society. Not only did we have to worry about the lesser houses trying to take our place or the more prestigious houses viewing us as a threat, we also had to watch the other members of our house and make sure they weren't plotting to sacrifice us to the goddess Lolth.

Some of the group really enjoyed the intrigue and planning that went into this game but it wasn't really my thing. I prefer RPGs that are much more collaborative because I think we should be working together as a team against the DM's monsters, rather than against each other.

And that leads me to the next question...

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #12: "Do prefer collaborative or competitive games? What do you think that says about you?"

As I previously stated, I prefer my RPGs to be collaborative because it can lead to hard feelings amongst the players if you kill their character. Although, to be honest, I don't mind when my characters die because I get to make a new one. But I do have a lot of anxiety about doing something that is going to affect another person's character because I don't want to piss them off. People put a lot of time and effort into creating their characters, I would go so far as to say that some people even put a little bit of their heart and soul into it, and they can get really upset if you do anything that makes them deviate from their original character concept.

I do like to play some competitive games, like Magic: The Gathering or Scrabble. Those games are designed for people to beat the stuffing out of their opponent and you go to the game knowing that you either win or loose.

Honestly, I'm not really sure what my preferences say about me.

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #9

2012-01-09T10:22:00.000-05:00

"Have you ever played a character of the opposite sex. Why or why not? If yes, how did the other players react?" - Reverb Gamers

In the 10+ years that I have played D&D, I have never played a male character - until now. I am playing a male dwarf named Agnes Aleguzzler in my friend Kevin's Pathfinder game. I think the reason that I have always played a female character, up until now, was that I was the only female in the group. Honestly, it doesn't make a lot of sense because the guys in my group have never had an issue playing female characters but for some reason, I have always felt obligated to play a female character. I am not the only girl in Kevin's group and so I felt comfortable playing a male character this time.

I remember the first time one of the guys in my D&D group picked a female character, I was a little surprised. They were so nonchalant about it, too because it really wasn't a big deal. It was great when Randy would play a snooty elf female because he'd even pitch his voice a little higher and his mannerisms would be a little more effeminate. Rob has also played many female characters and he was really good at it, too.

If there is any awkwardness about me playing a male character in Kevin's game it's probably due to the fact that Agnes is kind of a lech and he hits on all of the females. It's actually kind of fun to play that kind of character because when I play my female characters, I tend not to be that way. I find it easier to "flirt" as a male character than I do as a female, maybe because I know that it won't be taken seriously.

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #7, 8

2012-01-09T09:59:00.002-05:00

"How do you pick names for your characters?" - Reverb Gamers

I usually try to let something about my character influence the name that I pick. For instance, I'm currently playing a savage skald in my friend Rob's Pathfinder game and the class in and of itself suggests a very Nordic name (Astrid). However, when I'm playing a halfling, I usually try to pick very silly names. Once, during character creation, I decided to name halfling after my phone because it sounded very halfling-ish (Blackberry).

If I get stumped on picking a character name, I will often google for fantasy names or Irish/Celtic names because those usually sound pretty fantastic.

"What's the one gaming accessory (lucky dice, soundtrack, etc.) you just can't do without? Why?" - Reverb Gamers

Well, dice are usually pretty important to my gaming because you can't play D&D without them. I don't really have a lucky set, though. I usually pick my pink dice, just because they are pretty but if they aren't rolling well, then I will go to another set. My Dragon Chow dice bag is also pretty important because without it, my dice would probably get lost.

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #6

2012-01-09T09:50:00.001-05:00

"Describe your all-time favorite character to play. What was it about him/her/it that you enjoyed so much?" - Reverb Gamers

Oh wow, this prompt is actually kind of hard. I have so many characters that I love and it's hard to pick just one. Most of my characters have been either halfling rogues or human wizards. I know it's not very versatile of me as a gamer but those are the 2 things that I really have the most fun playing. Something that really makes it fun for me is that my DMs would always takes my back story and find a way to work it into a major plot point in the campaign (they tended to do this for all the players). It's really nice to feel like my character is important to the story.

If I had to pick an all-time, absolute favorite then it would probably be Lily, a human wizard. She actually started out as a joke but I got to play her up to 22nd or 23rd level. Our group was trying to get rid of the Dragon Cult and prevent the return of Ashardalon. I think we were playing the Heart of Nightfang Spire module and our party was TPK'd while trying to fight a dracolich. Robbie was playing an evil wizardress named Raven and luckily, she had been experimenting with cloning. When the party was killed, Raven's clone awoke and attempted to summon the party back by using an epic level spell. Unfortunately she wasn't able to cast the spell as it was written (Robbie didn't role high enough) and she summoned back the party from an alternate plane (everyone's alignment was switched).

Instead of summoning back the opposite of my original character, Randy, the DM, talked me into playing a good version of Raven. We were sitting around the table and as Randy was describing what happened when Raven botched the spell, he got to me and he says, "She looks just like Raven." Robbie brushed it off but Randy said, "No Rob, she looks JUST like Raven." Robbie's reaction was priceless as I sat at the table and pretended to be petting a white cat (Raven had a black cat familiar, so Lily's familiar was a white cat). It turned out that my character was actually from this plane and that Raven was from the opposite plane but that our characters had been switched at birth, somehow. We finished that campaign with an anti-paladin, an evil cleric, & 2 arch-mages and in the end, Raven redeemed herself and killed Ashardalon by sacrificing herself.

Best. Campaign. Ever.

Souls For Smuggler's Shiv #1

2012-01-08T13:54:00.000-05:00

This is the second time that I've played a character in Paizo's Serpent's Skull AP. The first time I played, Randy was running the game and we played for several months but we didn't complete the module. Robbie is running the game this time around and I think we are going through the module at a much faster rate. We started the game on January 8th but I've been too lazy to blog about it so I've back-dated this entry to the date that we started.

I don't really have an in-depth story for my character. I decided to play a savage skald because I saw some people talking about it on G+ and it seemed like a cool concept. My character's name is Astrid and she comes from the Northern lands of Irrisen. The reason she is adventuring is because she is hoping to find an artifact to help her people defeat Baba Yaga. She has no idea what that artifact could be but she is hoping she will know it when she finds it (translation: the DM will come up with the artifact [if one exists] and give me clues about it throughout the AP).

The adventures starts when Astrid and the other characters board The Jenivere. Astrid and two of the other characters board the ship at it's northernmost port in Magnimar and they are on the ship the longest, almost 4 months. The ship is heading to Sargava but due to mysterious circumstances, the characters wake up on the beach of a deserted island with no clue as to how they got there. Their first encounter with the island is the eurypterids that come swarming out of the sea to nibble on the toes of the unconscious heroes. We eventually defeat the creatures, despite our sickened and disoriented status.

Marcus, the paladin, decides to head off into the jungle to search for shelter but he is caught in a dangerous pit trap and badly wounded. We are able to get him down and Ishirou (one of the NPC's) gives his only healing potion to the paladin to save his life. It's decided that we need to stick together as a group and that we should scout out the ship wreck of The Jenivere, which we can see in the distance. We need to gather supplies and we are hoping to find the keys to the manacles which bind Jask (another NPC).

We are able to make it up the cliffs that overlook our shipwreck without incident but the only way to board the ship is to climb down onto it's surface. The cliff face is slippery with sea water but there are vines clinging to the surface that we can use to climb down. However, despite the aid of the vines, Jerzy (our ranger) & Chin (our fighter), both manage to fall into the water, where they risk being dashed upon the rocks. Astrid ties one of the vines around her waist and she has Marcus lower her down to the ship, so she is able to make it without falling in. Chin is able to swim to the boat and Aerys (an NPC) dives into the water and is able to help Jerzy to the boat.

The game session ended as the three of us gathered on the deck of the shipwrecked Jenivere.

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #5

2012-01-05T12:25:00.001-05:00

"Have you ever introduced a child to gaming, or played a game with a young person? How is gaming with kids different than gaming with adults?" - Reverb Gamers

Yes! I have 2 little boys, ages 6 and 7, and I've gamed with them many times. Mostly, it's been board games like Chutes & Ladders or Sorry but we also play a lot of video games together, like Lego Rock Band or Kinect Adventures. I bought a card game from Wastex Games last year, called Reversal of Fortune, and my 6 year old kicks ass at it. I thought I was going easy on him but he's actually really blood thirsty when it comes to that game! Maybe it's because "treasure" is involved.

I have done some rpgKids adventures with them and they really like that but now that they are getting a little older, I'm looking forward to introducing them to Pathfinder. I want to try out the Pathfinder Beginner Box because I've heard that it's really easy & it's a good teaching tool for kids as young as they are. It will be awesome to have an in-home gaming group to play with on a regular basis!!!

Masters of the Fallen Fortress

2012-01-04T15:16:00.002-05:00

There was another Pathfinder Society game out at Saltire Games this past Friday and I had nothing else to do, so I RSVP'd to play. I made a fighter so that I'd have the option to play something else just in case everyone else brought a magic user to the table, like the last time. Her name is Six and she's a mercenary for The Sczarni faction.

I had originally RSVP'd to play the #3-01: The Frostfur Captives scenario but the DM wasn't comfortable with running for 7 people because it makes the scenario less challenging & combat takes forever with that many people. There was another guy there who had already played this scenario so he offered to run a different scenario for half of the group. I initially wanted to play the Frostfur scenario but I decided to go with the other DM. I'm really glad that I did because it was a lot of fun.

Sean, the guy running the game, hadn't DM'd a PFS game before but he did a really good job. The other two people, Tracy & her fiancee (I can't remember his name), were also a lot of fun to play with. We actually had a well balanced party. I had my fighter, Tracy had a rogue, & her fiancee was playing a gnome witch named Rumple (who capered about like a jester and spoke in rhymes). We had an NPC cleric to round out our party and she actually came in really handy.

Sean ran The Master of the Fallen Fortress module for the 3 of us and it wasn't like the other PFS game that I had played in. There were no faction objectives to accomplish and it assumed that the party members already knew each other and that we were just out, exploring some old ruins for treasure. I'm not used to playing a fighter and the characters that I typically play usually hang out in the back of the group because they have low hit points. With the exception of the rogue checking for traps, my fighter was in the front the whole time.

We encountered a pack of wild dogs, a giant spider, bats, and numerous troglodytes during our exploration of the tower. My character was actually knocked down to -7 HP but the cleric was able to cast Revoke (or Rebuke) Death on her and bring her back and heal her. To be honest, my character was responsible for a lot of the combat that we got into. There was one situation that we could have avoided because the creature was sleeping but Six tried to shut the door and woke the creature up. She also moved into the giant spider's territory, provoking it to attack. And then there were the bats...

Sean had this awesome DM die that he would roll at times when we wanted to do something outside of the scope of the rules and depending on the symbol (they had smiley faces and frowny faces and other random symbols on them) various things could happen. At one point, we found a hidden door but the rogue broke the lock so Six used a strength check (which she made) to open it. The hardness of worked masonry is DC 30 & instead of telling me that my character couldn't break through the door, Sean rolled his DM die and based on the outcome of the die, it was determined that the door was old and rickety & she burst through. Fortunately, Six made her reflex save and she didn't fall into the chasm on the other side. But she did wake up the bats on the ceiling, which swarmed her. Rumple cast sleep on Six & the bats, knocking them all out and the rogue was able to use sleight of hands to pull Six out from underneath them without waking the sleeping bats.

We finally got to the top of the tower and encountered the BBEG, which was another troglodyte, and his pet crocodile. At this point we had to rush through the final combat because the game store was closing but we were able to defeat the BBEG and his pet and pillage all of the treasures.

Chosing The Lesser Of Two Evils

2012-01-04T13:34:00.001-05:00

I want to write about politics but I'm not sure how to organize my thoughts.

I have a serious question. How do I go about researching the candidates who are currently campaigning to be our next president?

I've googled them all. I've read the articles about them at the news websites. I've tried to read about them on their own websites. I've read the positive stuff and the negative stuff. I watch the news. Even after all of this information, I still feel like I don't know anything about any of the candidates.

I voted for Obama back in 2008 because I liked what he had to say and I liked his ideas. But unfortunately, it seems like he had to spend so much time and energy getting his health-care reforms passed that once it was done, he just lost steam. I know that he's done other things, like finally getting the troops out of Iraq, but it just seems like all of the talk that came before he was elected just noise.

I also know that Obama has had a tough time getting things done because the Republicans and the Democrats don't want to work together. This is nothing new but it seems like the fighting has been worse since he took office. There is all this talk from the politicians about how they all need to work together to solve issues but no one really seems to be doing it. It seems to me that there is even more inner-party fighting than normal.

And truth be told, I don't want to vote for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum or any of the other Republican candidates. I don't understand what Ron Paul means when he talks about "sound money" although I like the idea of getting rid of the "corporate stranglehold in Washington". I don't think Michele Bachmann or the rest are even worth looking into. And honestly, I don't feel like I should have to read a "statement of faith" on any of their websites. Their religion should have nothing to do with why I vote for them.

So it comes down to voting for Obama again and potentially having another 4 years of nothing or voting for someone that I don't understand or that I feel as if I have to sacrifice some of the things that I think are important for the greater good of the nation. I might feel more comfortable doing something like that if I felt like everyone else made decisions like that, too.

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #4

2012-01-04T13:30:00.000-05:00

"Are you a "closet gamer?" Have you ever hidden the fact that you're a gamer from your co-workers, friends, family, or significant other? Why or why not? How did they react if they found out?" - Reverb Gamers

I am proud to say that I am NOT a closet gamer. Everyone who knows me knows that I am a big geek. I've even tried to recruit people that live around me to play in a D&D game, although that didn't go very well. The local moms group that I am a member of knows that I will very rarely go to an evening function because I am most likely gaming. My husband is not a gamer but when we first started dating, I let him know up front that I played D&D every week.

I'm happy to say that I've never gotten a bad reaction to telling anyone that I was a gamer, at least not to my face. I'm sure that the other moms think I'm weird but I'm fine with that. My husband's aunt did tell me once that she wished I didn't play D&D. When I asked her why she didn't want me to play, her response was that it wasn't right with god. I told her that we were actually playing in a campaign where our characters were priests of a church and that we were conquering evil (I really was playing in a campaign like this at the time). She thought that seemed alright and hasn't said anything to me about it since then!

The Workout Part 2

2012-01-04T12:45:00.000-05:00

5 minute warm up

Phase 1
Focus on legs
   DB squats 1 x 15 (12.5 lbs)
   Machine leg curls 1 x 12 (40 lbs)
   Machine leg extension 1 x 12 (50 lbs)
   Leg Press 1 x 15 (50 lbs)
   Treadmill - jog three minutes & build the intensity gradually. Not to a sprint level but so that it is somewhat challenging.

Phase 2
Focus on the shoulders
   Seated Machine Press 1 x 12 (20 lbs)
   Standing DB Lateral Raises 1 x 12 (7.5 lbs)
   DB Shrugs 1 x 12 (12.5 lbs)
   Stepper - 3 minutes (build intensity so that the last minute is challenging).

Phase 3
Focus on triceps
   Lying DB triceps extensions 1 x 12 (12.5 lbs)
   Triceps Pushdown Cable 1 x 10 (30 lbs)
   Seated Bench Dips 1 x 12 (30 lbs)
   Elliptical - 3 minutes (high intensity, but you should not be gasping for air).

Phase 4
Focus on abs
   Fit Ball Crunch 1 x 15
   Double crunch 1 x15
   Bent knee leg lift 1 x15
   Stationary Bike - 3 minutes (high intensity) followed by 5 minute cool down at low intensity. Stretch for five minutes.

Today I warmed up on the treadmill for 25 minutes before I went into my workout. My legs and abs were a little sore for yesterday but no so sore that I couldn't move. I notice now that my arms and shoulders are also a little sore but it's also not bad.

I had a scrambled egg w/fat free cheddar cheese for breakfast but I noticed that I still felt a little nauseous by the end of my workout. I tried not to gulp down water during my cool down, like I did yesterday but it didn't really help my stomach, either way. I extended my cool down to 15 minutes.

I'm going to alternate between yesterday's workout and this one for the next month, gradually increasing my warm up & cool down times to 1/2 hour and increasing my weights and reps. I may also try to extend the cardio intervals up to 5 minutes, instead of 3. I probably won't blog about my workout everyday and only post about it when I increase weights, times, etc.

The Workout Part 1

2012-01-03T14:43:00.002-05:00

The bad news is that when I weighed myself this morning, I had gained back 15 lbs since the last time I weighed myself (back in June). Although, to be honest, it's not as much as I thought it was going to be. I'm also not too stressed about it because if I can stick to my plans, I'll loose it again really quickly. However, it does mean that I now need to loose 95 lbs, instead of another 80 lbs.

I started a new fitness routine today. This was today's workout. There is another one that I will do tomorrow and then I will alternate between the two. I plan on sticking to this routine for the next month, increasing the amount of weights that I use and maybe the number of reps that I do. I also want to slowly increase the amount of cardio that I do before and after each set. Today I warmed up for 20 minutes on the treadmill, walking at a very brisk pace. I extended my cool down to 10 minutes, instead of 5. It made my workout a total of 60 minutes, instead of 30.

5 minute warm up

Phase 1
Focus on chest
   DB incline chest press 1 x 12 (10 lbs)
   DB Flyes 1 x 15 (10 lbs)
   Machine chest press 1 x 15 (40 lbs)
   Treadmill - jog three minutes & build the intensity gradually. Not to a sprint level but so that it is somewhat challenging.

Phase 2
Focus on the back
   Lateral Pulldown 1 x 10 (60 lbs)
   Cable Row 1 x 12 (90 lbs)
   Seated Machine Row 1 x 12 (50 lbs)
   Stepper - 3 minutes (build intensity so that the last minute is challenging).

Phase 3
Focus on biceps
   Standing alternate DB Curls 1 x 10 (10 lbs)
   Seated Incline DB Curls 1 x 12 (10 lbs)
   Machine Curls 1 x 10 (30 lbs)
   Elliptical - 3 minutes (high intensity, but you should not be gasping for air).

Phase 4
Focus on abs
   Bicycle Maneuver 1 x 15
   Double crunch 1 x15
   Bent knee leg lift 1 x15
   Stationary Bike - 3 minutes (high intensity) followed by 5 minute cool down at low intensity. Stretch for five minutes.

I felt a little nauseous as I was moving into phase 3 and 4 and when I sat down to stretch, I started to get a little light headed. I had a cup of sugar free oatmeal with milk for breakfast, along with a cup of coffee and to be honest, I don't think it was enough. I may have to switch back to a scrambled egg & save the oatmeal for an afternoon snack! I also drank a lot of water (at least 64 oz.) during my workout and that may have also made me feel sick.

So far, I'm doing very well with my calorie intake. I am starting to feel hungry again, after eating lunch at 11:30 AM and the afternoon is my big snacking time and the time when I'm most likely to make poor food choices. It's only 2:30 PM and I'm trying to wait until 3:30 for my snack because that's when Xander gets home and the boys have their snacks. We will probably eat dinner around 5:30 today.

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #3

2012-01-03T14:07:00.001-05:00

"What kind of gamer are you? Rules Lawyer, Munchkin/Power Gamer, Lurker, Storyteller/Method Actor, or something else? (Search "types of gamer" for more ideas!) How does this affect the kinds of games you play? For example, maybe you prefer crunchy rules-heavy systems to more theatrical rules-light ones." - Reverb Gamers

If I had to classify myself as a type of gamer I would say that I'm probably The Clown. The Clown is defined by kotaku.com as someone who likes to make the other players laugh and who has lots of great one-liners. Now, I'm not saying that I'm the funniest person at the table but I do like play silly characters and I like making people laugh. My favorite race to play is halfling and that, in and of itself, lends to being silly.

One of my favorite memories is when one of the other guys was playing a paladin of Torm and I was playing a halfling character. Whenever the paladin would say that something was his "duty" or talk about the "god of duty" you would hear my character say "doody!" in a tiny, squeaky voice. It was so freaking funny and now none of us can say the word "duty" without saying "doody!" immediately after. And yes, it did get on the paladin's (and the player's) nerves but being annoying is part of a halfling's job description.

Another fun memory was in the Dragonlance RPG setting. I was playing a kender and one of the other guys was playing a gnome. In the DLRPG, gnomes are constantly trying to invent things but their inventions almost never work. However, in this case, this gnome's inventions worked almost all of the time and he found out it was because my kender wouldn't stop touching them and she kept changing things on the inventions that would make it function. My kender also made "best friends" with everyone - from a black robed mage to a blue dragon. She also "borrowed" a ring of wish from Ladonna, a very powerful and evil black robbed wizard. What did my kender wish for? She wished for Stinky, the dog of our mage, to be with us.

I really can't help but to be silly when I game and I've tried to play serious characters but it just doesn't work out for me.

My Life As A Mixtape

2012-01-02T23:31:00.002-05:00

Jessica did this awesome post over at her blog and she did it as part of a blogging group thingee that I totally missed out on. However, I really liked the idea of this post so I decided to do one myself. It was really hard to narrow it down to these few songs and I know that I'm leaving a lot out. It's also interesting to me that these are the first songs to popped into my head and the memories that I associate with them.

The topic was this: What was the soundtrack of your year? Of your life? Which songs most strongly represent the various eras of your life? What songs were playing for the most crucial, formative moments of your life? Or, if the chronological approach doesn’t work for you, which songs best capture the different facets of your life? (Childhood, Love Life, Adulthood, Loss, Growth, Career, Happiness, Sadness, etc.) Please elaborate. (courtesy of Bethany/Katie)

Side A - Childhood & high school

Star Wars VI - Victory Celebration - I remember my dad took me & my brother to see this movie but it cut out 5 minutes in & my dad was too impatient to wait for them to fix it & we had to leave. When I finally did get to see the movie, I fell in love with Darth Vader. Age 6.

Bon Jovi - Livin' on a Prayer - One of my best friends in New York was in love with Bon Jovi & we listened to them whenever I went to her house, age 9.

New Kids On The Block - Hangin' Tough - I was at a friend's slumber party and they played NKOtB all night. Also in NY, age 12.

Bel Biv Devoe - Poison - my parents split up & my mom moved us to Pennsylvania, where hip hop was all the rage. I remember some kids were talking about Poison and I thought they meant the band. Turns out they were talking about this song, age 12.

Michael Bolton - Time, Love, & Tenderness - parents got back together & we're back in NY for a brief time. I listened to this song over and over and over. I was in love with Michael Bolton & his long, flowing hair, age 13.

N.W.A. - She Swallowed It - Back in Indiana & I was going to a public school in the middle of "the hood", age 14.

Pearl Jam - Alive - I got a Pearl Jam tape for my birthday and I remember a girl that I was friends with asking me to pretend it was hers so that she could impress her boyfriend, age 15.

Radiohead - Creep - I was a sophomore in high school and I got this cassette for Christmas from a boy at school, age 15.

NIN - Head Like A Hole - This was the very first band that I got to see in concert without my parents, age 17.

Side B - College & up until the present

The Cure - Friday I'm In Love - I got the Wish album for Christmas on cd & I felt like a piece of my heart had been returned to me, age 18.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Sir Psycho Sexy - driving to Lafayette, IN with my best friend Mandy. We listened to Blood Sugar Sex Magik the whole way there & back, age 19.

Beastie Boys - So What'cha Want - College. This tape never left my radio, ages 18 - 20.

Velcro Fish - Mac & Cheese (Made By Chris' Mom) - I saw so many great local bands in the late '90's with Mandy. So many memories of driving to shows. "How far is it?" "I dunno but he drew the line really long on the map." (couldn't find a video for this one) Age 18 - 20.

Type O Negative - Love You To Death - I heard this song for the first time in Lafayette, IN and also met my future ex-boyfriend for the first time, age 20.

Tool - Sober - pretty much most of my early twenties. I was in the throes of a massive depression but I didn't know what to do about it. I was hospitilized with a blood clot & lost my job within the same month. Also had to move back in with my parents and broke up with my boyfriend. Ages 22 - 24.

Puddle Of Mud - Control - I remember dancing to this with my boyfriend (now husband) as we were packing his things up to move him in with me, age 25.

You Are My Sunshine - my first child, Alexander, is born. For the first time in years, I finally feel like I'm sane & that maybe I can handle being a responsible adult, age 26.

Itsy, Bitsy Spider - my second child, Zachary is born, age 27.

The Killers - Mr. Brightside - playing this song over & over on Rock Band, age 32.

Clint Black - Like The Rain - I'm not a fan of country music but this song was played at my brother's funeral, age 27.

A Perfect Circle - Blue - Sitting around with my 2 best friends, we'd always pause to listen to this song when it came on, age 33.

Jimmy Eat World - The Middle - I've played this song a million times on Rock Band but today is the first time that I've actually listened to the lyrics. I think it's very appropriate for me at the moment, age 34.

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #2

2012-01-02T17:26:00.001-05:00

"What is it about gaming that you enjoy the most? Why do you game? Is it the adrenaline rush, the social aspect, or something else?" - Reverb Gamers

I know that when the term "gaming" is used, it's meant in the most broadest sense, i.e. board games, RPGS, video games, etc. But when I answer this question, I'm answering it in respect to RPG's in general and to D&D/Pathfinder in particular because that is what I have the most experience with.

One of the things that I like the most about gaming is using my imagination. I think that I have a great imagination but being neither a writer, musician, actor, or artist I don't have a lot of outlets for my imagination. Gaming is a great way for me to use my imagination and I have an absolute blast ~~coming up with different characters~~ playing halflings.

I also like the problem solving aspect of gaming. Solving a puzzle that the DM has put forth and doing it in a way that they didn't expect is a lot of fun! It doesn't happen very often but when it does, it is very satisfying.

The social aspect of gaming is also a good thing. I like getting together at least once a week with a group of friends to game. Since I am a stay-at-home mom, it's nice to have an activity outside of the house that doesn't involve my kids!

Reverb Gamers 2012 - #1

2012-01-02T17:02:00.002-05:00

I'm a day late jumping on to this bandwagon but here it goes.

"What was your first roleplaying experience? Who introduced you to it? How did that introduction shape the gamer you've become?" - Reverb Gamers

I first started gaming in 2000, right before 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons came out. I remember that my very first character was a witch and the guy running the game didn't bother to make us memorize THAC0 or any of the other rules because he planned on switching to the new rules (thank jebus for that because MATH IS HARD!). When 3rd edition did come out, we found out that there were no more "specialty" classes so we converted my character into a wizard. Her name was Brin and she had a cat familiar.

The guy who introduced me to gaming was named Bob & I used to work with him. We played with 2 other guys, my ex-boyfriend & one of his friends named Moose (and before anyone starts into the whole "you only gamed because of your boyfriend" thing - my ex played BECAUSE of me, not the other way around). I think we only played one or 2 sessions because Moose didn't like D&D and he ran around killing everything and getting us into trouble.

Later on, I met a guy and during conversation I mentioned that I had played D&D a few times. He told me that he also played and introduced me to the group. I played D&D with that group for almost 10 years before personal differences got in the way but hopefully, I'll get to start gaming with one of the guys in a new group again. We went from using D&D 3.0 to 3.5 and then we switched to Pathfinder because we didn't want to buy all of the new books coming out with 4.0. I also learned how to play D20 modern, Star Wars Saga Edition, & Vampire with these guys.

I think that at first, by playing with a group of more experienced gamers, I was always unsure of my role playing/gaming abilities. I was always afraid of making mistakes or of not doing something "right" and I was very self-conscious. I didn't like to make decisions for the group and I hated being put in situations where I was in charge. Now that I've gamed with other people, through games at my FLGS & at conventions, it's shown me that I do know a lot about the rules and that I'm pretty decent at role playing and I'm becoming much more comfortable as a gamer. I also am more open to playing new games that I don't know the rules for because I know that I will pick them up pretty quickly.

Resolutions 2012

2012-01-02T15:45:00.000-05:00

1) Weight loss - I managed to loose 80 lbs last year and I'd like to reach my goal weight this year. Another 80 lbs to go! To accomplish this goal, I need to do the following:

Start eating better again - picking healthier foods & controlling my portion sizes
Learn how to cook healthier meals
Start planning out my menus to alleviate bad food choices
Exercise - I was going to the gym 5 days a week when I lost the most weight

2) Gaming - I have always loved playing D&D but I'm really starting to enjoy the whole "gamer" culture. This year I'd like to::

Go to Gen Con, Who's Yer Con, & The Origins Game Fair
Play more Pathfinder - be it a regular home game and/or Society play
Learn to play new RPG's
Introduce my kids to Pathfinder, with the beginner box
Have a weekly "game" night at home with my husband & the kids

3) Improve my mental attitude by doing the following:

I need to learn how to let go of the past and to not dwell on the negative things
I want to become a more positive person
I need to spend less time worrying about the people who don't like me and more time appreciating the people that do
PDGAF!!!

I'm going to keep the list short this year. Last year, I had 20 items on my list and I accomplished maybe 4 of them. I'm picking the 3 things that I need to work on or that I want to do to make me a happier person.

Here's to 2012 and all of the opportunities that it may bring!!!

2011

2011-12-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

Here is a brief overview of 2011.

January - I made my New Year resolutions and then spent the rest of the month beating myself up for breaking most of them within days. I think I accomplished maybe 4 things out of the 20 that I had resolved to do.

February - I joined a gym in February and started going every day. I also started eating better. And apparently I was mad at someone for doing something but as of right now, I can't remember who or what it was.

March - By this point, I've lost 48 lbs. (since October 2010). Also got to go to Kentucky and spent some time doing things with Aaron and the boys (Louisville Slugger Museum, the zoo, the science center). It was a lot of fun & I think we're going back next year.

April - Still going to the gym every day at this point. I participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. The race was 3 miles but I think I walked a total of 6 that day with going from the car and back & to lunch, etc.

May - Down 80 lbs. since Oct. 2010. Also participated in the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon and walked 13.1 miles in 3 hrs & 45 minutes. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever done and something that I didn't think I'd finish but I did. I have the medal to prove it. I also had a major falling out with an old friend that resulted in some pretty nasty things being said on both sides.

June - I had another birthday. I had convinced myself that I was turning 35 but I'm really only 34.

July - Still going to the gym but not as often as I should have been. I started DM'ing for my D&D group for the first time, running the first module in the Pathfinder AP: The Carrion Crown.

August - The gym that I belong to cancelled the classes that I was taking. This completely discouraged me and I quit going to the gym on a regular basis. On the plus side, I got to go to Gen Con for a day and I got to meet a lot of cool people that I talk to on twitter. I also stepped out of my "gaming" shell & played a bunch of different games that weren't D&D. Also celebrated the 6 & 7th birthdays of my 2 boys.

September - I was able to put my anger and hard feelings aside and apologize to my old friend. We met for lunch, to talk, and we started putting our friendship back together.

October - Aaron and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. I also got to support two of my friends who had stories published in an anthology. I know that the success is totally theirs but I'm proud that I was able to go to their book reading and to support them and their accomplishment. My D&D group went on hiatus & I quit playing Vampire.

November - I think I had a tiny nervous breakdown. I also had a "come to Jesus" meeting with my dad to talk about my issues with him. I didn't realize that I had so many negative feelings towards him and that it had really started to affect me. Talking to him really helped me to recognize some of those issues.

December - This month has been the best and the worst of 2011 and I think that for the rest of my life, December will always have a bittersweet feel to it. This was the 6th anniversary of my brother's death and I think I finally accepted my grief and fully allowed myself to feel it, after 6 years. On the other hand, I got to spend a lot of quality time with my mom & dad (in separate places, of course) and to really talk to both of them. I also learned a lot about myself but I'm not really sure what to do with that knowledge yet. We also didn't have a lot of money to buy Christmas presents but we were still able to get the boys something that they really wanted from Santa.

Looking back over the past year, I realize that despite the last few months, I did get to experience some amazing things and made some great accomplishments. I'm looking forward to what next year will bring and hope that my new insights into who I am will help to bring about good things for myself and my family!

Self Awareness

2011-12-16T16:24:00.001-05:00

I made a comment to a friend of mine on twitter that I was allowing myself to be in a bad mood this morning. The boys were at school and I had some time to be alone and I felt that if I was going to be in a bad mood, I should probably do it while I was by myself. So I put on some music and as I was waiting for my dad to arrive, I straightened up my house and did the dishes and thought about all the things that were making me feel shitty.

I was actually kind of dreading my dad's visit but it was actually pleasant. We had a nice talk and I came to realize that my biggest issue with him and with my mom is that I've had to come to see them as people and not as parents anymore. The dad that I grew up with no longer exists and I'm having a hard time coping with the person that he's become. He's not a bad person, in fact he's probably a better person now than he was when I was growing up. But he's not familiar and I'm struggling with that. The same goes for my mom. I don't know why it's such a difficult concept for me to grasp but there it is.

I also talked to him about how my feelings from the past are influencing how I feel now. When I was younger, I used to be able to forgive and forget so easily. I could have a huge fight with someone and then turn around and be best friends with them and not think anything about what made me angry at them. Now that I'm getting older, I find that I'm having a harder time letting go of things that make me angry or sad or hurt.

I don't like holding grudges because I think they have a way of eating a person up inside - I see it first hand when I am with my mom. She's always had a hard time of letting things go and even though she has a reason to be angry, she doesn't forgive and holds it all inside and she's becoming a very bitter person. I love my mom very much but I don't want to be like that. And even though I say this, I still find that I have a hard time forgetting and forgiving because I don't want to be hurt again.

Another thing that I realized was that I've been putting my grief for my brother on a shelf these past 6 years. I don't really talk about Charlie's accident or the way I feel about loosing my brother. None of my friends really knew him and Aaron doesn't like to talk about emotions and feelings and crap. I don't really talk to my parents or my sister-in-law about him much because I don't want to hurt them by bringing it up. And when it comes to my sister-in-law and my parents, I've always subconsciously considered my grief not as important as theirs.

Even though we all lost the same person the day Charlie died, he meant something different to each of us - a child, a husband, and a brother. For some reason, I've always considered their grief more important than mine. I don't know why that is because I know he was just important to me as he was to them but I've always felt like I couldn't show my grief when I was around my parents because I had to let them show theirs. It's just one more thing that I've been bottling up. My dad made a comment today that I've always sacrificed what I was feeling for the sake of others.

Self-realization is very important but I don't know what to do with the information. I'm not sure how to change how I react to things or how to handle situations in a different fashion.

It's not the first time I've had some kind of epiphany when it comes to who I am and it won't be the last.

Another Year Gone

2011-12-16T08:52:00.001-05:00

I used to fight with my brother when we were little. We would fight until my mom or dad would come in and scream at us to stop because we were driving them crazy. We'd beat each other up and call each other awful names. But if anyone else tried to do that him, I'd kick their ass & he'd do the same for me. My mom used to say that we needed to be nice to each other because when they were gone, my brother & I would be all that we had left.

It's been 6 years since you left us and not a day goes by that I don't think about you.

I don't know if you're in heaven. I don't know if you're just gone. I don't think knowing one way or another would make me feel any better.

I often fantasize about going back to that day and picking up the phone and calling you. In my dream, I tell you that I love you and that I'm sorry for not being the best sister in the entire world. And I ask you to drive carefully and to put your fucking seat belt on.

I'm not stupid. I know that if you were still here, we'd still fight. Things wouldn't be perfect. We'd probably only see each other on the holidays even though we only lived 5 miles away from each other. I'd probably complain about all of your bratty red-headed children and you'd complain about mine.

But I would give almost anything to have you back.

I think mom has lost her spark. I think she put it in the casket with you. Dad has changed, too.

I feel numb most of the time. And when I do feel anything, it's extreme and out of proportion. Although, that's not your fault. It's how I've always been.

We weren't perfect as brother and sister. We didn't appreciate one another enough. We didn't call each other enough.

But I miss you anyway.

Kingmaker Game #1

2011-12-14T11:21:00.003-05:00

Our game is set in the Kingmaker AP and we are starting out with The Stolen Land module. We have a pretty diverse group & I hope the DM exploits this as we go forward. I'm playing Agnes Aleguzzler, cross-dressing Dwarven cleric. We also have Turin, the elven ranger, and his animal companion, a white dog/tiger thingee named Junk. (This is the best animal companion/familiar name ever and I'm so stealing it if we get a dog in real life. "Hey baby. Wanna pet my Junk?"). And we have a half-orc barbarian named Ricross (who's finishing move is the Ric Roll) and a human summoner named Helena (who plans on changing her name to something cool because all adventurers have cool names she just hasn't decided what it is yet).

Ricross is pretty quiet and Agnes was too drunk to notice that he is a half-orc so there is no tension there. Yet. However, Agnes couldn't help but to notice Helena (she has a charisma score of 20!) and he hit on her the entire game session. Helena is a shy, wide-eyed farm girl and so she has no experience with a surly, drunken dwarf. She ended up hiding out with her eidolon (who looks like a sexy satyr) and with Svetlana, the wife of the trading post guy, for most of the game session. At one point, Helena asked Svetlana if she had any books so Svetlana took her back to her bedroom. Agnes was convinced that they were getting naked so he & Ricross tried to peek through the bedroom window. Alas, it was nothing more than stupid girl talk. "No lickin' or nuthin'," muttered Agnes in disappointment.

Our individual characters ended up at Oleg's Trading Post in the middle of nowhere after receiving a summons from the Swordlords of Restov to explore and travel within the region known as the Greenbelt. It just so happens that Oleg & Svetlana had requested help from someone (the Swordlords?) because they were being harassed by bandits. It also just so happens that our charter urged us to "strive against banditry and other unlawful behaviors" that we should encounter. So even though we weren't necessarily the people that Oleg had sent for, we decided to help him out. (Agnes got drunk while Turin made preparation to meet the bandits and Helena scouted around outside the trading post. Not sure what Ricross was doing.)

The bandits eventually showed up to demand their "tribute" from Oleg. Turin managed to get one of the rickety old catapults loaded & he fired at the bandits but instead of hitting them and/or scaring them off, they rushed towards the outpost. Ricross & Agnes waited at the gates to meet the bandits but the cowards stopped just short of the entrance. Agnes demanded that they throw down their weapons & talk but seeing as how Turin had just wounded one of them with his bow, the request wasn't take seriously. The bandits got off of their horses and acted like they were going to come inside but Turin managed to knock one of them down so the others fled. Helena, being an inexperienced girl from a goat farm, stayed in the courtyard the whole time.

The one bandit that had been wounded was left behind so Agnes tried to get information from him. When the bandit failed to be intimidated by him, Agnes tried wiggling the arrow around inside his eye socket but that didn't work, either. So the half-orc had to scare the information out of him. Once the bandit told us the location of their camp, Agnes tried to yank the arrow out so that he could heal the bandit but the wound was too great and he died. Oh well.

We then spent a great deal of time in discussion about what we should do. Agnes wanted to stay at the out post and fortify their position (with strong drink) but Ricross thought that they should pursue the bandits. Helena also thought they should stay at the out post but Turin was wishy-washy and wouldn't answer the question. Agnes tried to convince Oleg & Svetlana that they should leave but Oleg was vehemently against it. The group eventually decided to venture out after the bandits but a trip that should have only take a day, on horseback, was going to take them at least 4 on foot (because the dwarf is so stinkin' slow).

Ricross offered to carry the dwarf so that they could move faster but Agnes vetoed that. Turin wanted to put Agnes on a horse, but they didn't have a horse strong enough to carry the dwarf. I think Agnes is going to have a phobia against horses & boats - horses because his feet won't be touching the ground and it'll make him feel like he's falling and boats because he can't swim. Since we were trying to get through the forest as quickly as we could, we didn't take time to explore our surroundings and we'll have to come back this way when we're done. Our only encounter on the road was a nest of grigs but the ranger noticed them so the grigs didn't make mischief on our group as we camped for the night.

We found the bandit encampment and our DM ended the session for the night.

Our first game session was kind of weird because this is the first time that I've gamed with them and for several of the other players, it's really their first time playing D&D/Pathfinder. There was a lot of awkwardness and hesitation around the table but I think that once we get used to each other and the other players get used to role playing and the rules, the game should smooth out nicely. It probably didn't help much that my dwarf was really crude, drunk, & was constantly hitting on the females!

Perspective

2011-12-13T16:24:00.001-05:00

This is going to be a weird post, so be patient with me. The shit has been going down for about 2 months now but I haven't really talked about it. Lots of reasons, which I've mentioned before, and lots of reasons that I haven't mentioned. So without sounding like a broken record, here's the run down:

The husband got laid off at the end of October. He was able to find a good job pretty quickly but it still fucks up the finances when you don't work for 2 weeks. It wouldn't have been as much of an issue if Christmas wasn't coming up and we didn't have a bunch of other shit happen at the same time. The other shit is as follows:
   a) The furnace broke and it's still not fixed, although we have an idea of what the issue might be and it's not a huge deal if we fix it instead of calling a company. Just waiting to have the funds to buy the part. We currently have 2 space heaters running and its actually warmer in the house than when the furnace is running. I normally keep the thermostat at 68 degrees but the space heaters keep it around 73 - 75 degrees.
   b) Truck was dead but thanks to my husband and a friend, it's up and running again although we have to be careful with it because the tires should've been replaced 6 months ago.
   c) Battery in the Mazda may be dying, but if we keep it parked in the garage we may be able to milk it for another few weeks.

Issues with the family. Already talked about this with all parties involved. Still feeling frustrated but not much can be done. Things should simmer down once Christmas is over and I don't have to worry about scheduling things without hurting people's feelings or feeling obligated to be in a place that I don't want to be or (god[s] forbid) be in the same room!.

Everyone in the house has been sick. I'm feeling better but Aaron is still sick and so are both kids. Xander has been on antibiotics and he isn't running a fever, so I think he's getting better. Zach, however, has pneumonia. Thank goodness that we have the HSA so that I could take him to the doctor and get his medication. Hopefully he'll be all cleared up by Christmas.

Also coming to the realization that even though I tried to patch things up with an old friend, it's probably not going to work because life can't go back to the way it was. I've tried to show that I was there for him by responding to texts & emails, even though I couldn't be there in person but it sounds like what he wants is impossible for me to give. Impossible, because it involves other people, aside from the two of us. Difficult, because I have other things in my life that will always come first and it's hard for him to see that. It also sounds like he only wants to be friends in order to play D&D, something that he accused me of a long time ago and something that was never true. I could be wrong but I'm going off of his own words. I have no hard feelings towards him anymore, only sadness that things couldn't work out for the better.

And with all of this negativity looming over me, the 6th anniversary of my brother's death is this Friday. I think about my brother every day and typically, my thoughts are of good things like the way he smiled as he held Xander for the first time and the way he used to carry on with his wife and how much he loved to watch sports. But as this day draws closer, I can't help but think of the day that he died and the way I felt when I found out. I can't help but think of the fact that the boys are growing up without their Uncle Charlie's influence and that they only know him through stories. I feel anger and regret and sadness at his passing instead of trying to remember the love and laughter that he brought.

I'm trying to keep my head above the water but the anger and negativity, the bullshit and the bad luck are threatening to overwhelm me. Suddenly, the things that seemed so important just aren't that important anymore and trying to find enjoyment in each day seems impossible.

I could really, really come to loathe this time of year.

But I'm trying to stay positive. Things suck but they aren't that bad. "It'll be better next year" is always my mantra at the end of the year. I just have to make it through these next few weeks.

Just keep swimming.
Swimming.
Swimming.

I think I'm going to go watch Finding Nemo with the boys.

Agnes Aleguzzler

2011-12-01T16:46:00.003-05:00

I'm playing in a new Pathfinder game and as I was making my usual halfling rogue, it struck me that I wasn't excited about my character. I always play a halfling or a rogue or a wizard and I wanted to play something completely different this time. One of the other guys had already chosen to make a fighter and we also had a ranger and a summoner for the party.

The DM rattled off several suggestions for me but none of them really seemed exciting and I loathe paladins because it's just not in my chaotic nature to play one. That left me with cleric - a class that I really don't like to play because all they do is heal people and that's boring. In fact, I had already declared to my new group that I absolutely did not want to play a cleric or paladin. So imagine their confusion when I announced that I didn't want to play the halfling rogue that I had spent most of the evening creating.

My friend Rob & I used to joke about playing a cross-dressing Dwarven Battlerager (imagine Thibbledorf Pwent in drag!) and whenever I see the picture of the half-nekkid dwarf in the Pathfinder book, I imagine him in a pink and frilly dress. That's when I decided that I was finally going to make my cross-dressing Dwarf PC and since fighter was already taken, I figured I could play a cleric who prefers to break heads rather then mend them.

I like the idea of the hierarchical Dwarven society as in The Dragon Age games and that if a Dwarf leaves their underground home for a life on the surface, they are forever banished. So, while it may not be "canon" for the Pathfinder realms, I'm going to say that this is the type of Dwarven society that Agnes grew up in. (So if the area that I say he's from doesn't match up with what you know of Pathfinder & Dwarves, this is the reason.)

Agnes Aleguzzler hails from the Mountains of Kodar and he was born into the Smith Caste. Both his mother and father were smiths of some renowned and it was expected that he and his older siblings would follow in their parent's footsteps. Alas, while the work that Agnes produced could far outstrip that of a human smith it was poor by Dwarven standards. Agnes loved his family but his mediocre crafting skills were often a bone of contention amongst them and stirred up quite a bit of sibling rivalry.

Agnes' oldest sister, Gretchen, was a master crafter in record time and often taunted Agnes about his poor smithing abilities. She used to tell him that he would be cast out of the Smith class & sent to the mines to labor until he was too old to hold a pick axe. Brunhild, the middle child, had a kinder heart and she would defend Agnes to anyone that would listen. "He's still young," she would say, "give him time to hone his skills and one day he will rival the greatest of our Smiths!"

The truth of the matter was that Agnes did not care to be a great Smith. He liked women, wine, and song more than anything and he longed to travel. He would spend his days in the local ale houses and listen to the tales that the rare surface visitors were telling. Agnes tried to dull his wanderlust with drink and spent most of his time drunk. One time Agnes confided his secret desire to a woman he though he loved but the wicked wench spread word and Agnes was labeled a trouble maker and a deviant. What self-respecting dwarf would want to visit the surface?

Agnes kept his head down and his whiskers close after that debacle but things were never quite the same. Women were no longer interested in him and by the time he was old enough to leave his parents home, he had no marriage prospects - not even from the lower castes. He was employed to create only the most basic of everyday items - pots and pans and the like, and the only friend he had was his sister Brunhild.

During his lowest point, he was approached by another dwarf of the Smith caste - Rhudighar Ironfist, and he was asked to sabotage his sister Gretchen's work. Rhudighar wished to humiliate Gretchen because she was a better smith than he was and he thought that if Gretchen was brought low, she would submit to his marriage requests. Rhudighar offered to pay Agnes very handsomely to do this awful deed but even though Agnes disliked his sister, she was still his family. Agnes refused and told Rhudighar that he was going to inform his sister of what Rhudighar had planned.

The next day, Agnes fortified himself with a great deal of whiskey and then went to Gretchen's house but when he arrived, he found her dead with an axe planted between her eyes. Agnes rushed to his sister side and tried to find a spark of life but it was too late. Of course, that's when the guards arrived, to find Agnes with his hands on the handle of the axe, one foot planted on Gretchen's chest as he strained to pull the axe out. Everyone knew of their sibling rivalry and so Agnes was arrested on sight.

As he sat in a jail cell, receiving no food or drink, he prayed to anyone who would listen to help him set the situation right. That night, as he lay in a fitful slumber, he was awoken by the sounds of his cell being opened. It was a halfling that he had met a few days earlier and she was accompanied by another dwarf that he didn't recognize. The halfling identified herself as Bubbles and her grouchy companion as Squeak and then she threw a dress at him and told him to put it on.

Bubbles and Squeak were able to smuggle Agnes out of the jail cell and out of his mountain home but as soon as he took one step on the surface, he felt the queerest sensation of falling. Agnes began to panic and would've bolted back into the mountain but Squeak knocked him on the back of the head & put him out. When Agnes next awoke, he was lying in a ditch in a strange city, still wearing the lacy dress that he had been smuggled out in. When he sat up he began to experience the strange falling sensation again and as he groped about, he found a wineskin at his feet. He quickly drank it down and as the feeling of drunkenness engulfed him, the falling sensation faded away.

Agnes has wandered around the area for several months now, not really sure what the names of the towns he is visiting are. He does odd jobs for anyone who will pay him and spends all of his coin on strong drink. He has found himself praying to Cayden Cailean, although he's not really sure who that is. All that he knows is that when he whispers his prayers to this strange deity, he feels a lightening in his soul that he's never felt before. The floating feeling is not as strong anymore, even when he is sober but he has found that even though he is living his dream and traveling on the surface, it's not as grand as he imagined it to be.

He longs to go home and explain to his family that he did not kill his sister. He longs to revenge his sister and find her killer. But mostly, he just wants to go home. He spends his days getting drunk to dull the pain and homesickness and he leaves the dress on to remind himself that he is a coward who could not stay to face his peers, even when he knew they wouldn't listen to him and that they were going to execute him despite his innocence.

Dealing With Demons

2011-11-30T10:39:00.001-05:00

"What's wrong with it?" the thing hissed.

"It's crying," another head rumbled in response.

"What's wrong little girl?" asked a 3rd head, it's voice almost tender.

The thing took up most of the room with it's deformed body. The room itself was filled with light but the shadows of the creatures hulking bulk covered her in darkness.

"I'm not a little girl," she hissed fiercely. "I'm a grown woman and I don't need your help."

"I think it wants to have sex with us," leered a 4th head.

"Ewwww!" she declared loudly, before she could give any thought to a proper response.

"Ignore it," said Head #1. "Maybe it'll go away."

Head #3 looked appalled at the idea. "But the child is clearly lost," it said with concern.

"I don't need your help!" she said forcefully.

"What is that sound?" said Head #1. "Does anyone hear that?" It's shifty eyes began to look around the room, purposefully avoiding her.

Head #4 licked it's lips slowly and said, "I think it needs a good spaaaankiiiing." It began to shuffle towards her and she scrunched herself further back into her corner.

Suddenly it stopped.

"No!" said Head #3. "You can't do that! She's only a child! Show her the light!"

Head #2 began to pick it's nose.

"Who are you talking about?" asked Head #1.

"Just leave me alone," she begged. She wiped her eyes defiantly but the tears kept on flowing. The tears never stopped. She couldn't remember the last time that she had stopped crying.

Head #3 began to speak, "We just want to -"

"FUCK YOU!!!!" yelled Head #4 wickedly.

"Fuck you, asshole!" shouted Head #1 in response. It was clearly angry at Head #4 and seemed as if it had really forgotten that she was in the room.

Head #3 shook itself in exasperation. "You can leave if you want. You just have to ask for help."

She could see a door behind the creature, just barely. It was glowing with a soft blue light.

"I DON'T WANT YOUR HELP!" she screamed. She screamed it over and over and over until her throat felt raw and bloody and her voice was almost lost.

Head #2 put it's hands over it's ears.

"Wow!" said Head #4. "It's a loud one!" It grinned suggestively.

Head #1, "Who's loud? I'm bored. Let's go get something to eat."

Head #3 sighed, his expression one of saintly martyrdom. "Come child. I'll show you the way. Just say the words."

She began to tremble with rage.

"I. Do. Not. Want. Your. Help." she whispered and with that she threw herself at the wall behind her and began to pound with her fists and scratch and bite and bang her head until she collapsed, exhausted and bloody and covered with sweat.

"Why, child?"

"Because," she said softly through bruised and swollen lips. "I've asked for help before and it was never given." She shut her eyes. "Now let me sleep."

"Good night," said Head #2.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she mumbled.

Women Writing The Weird

2011-11-29T10:28:00.004-05:00

Women Writing The Weird is an anthology of weird fiction from various female authors from around the world. The editor, Deb Hoag, defines the genre as "stories that delight, surprise, that hang about the dusky edges of 'mainstream' fiction with characters, settings, plots that abandon the normal and mundane and explore new ideas, themes and ways of being".

There are many stories in this book and I've picked just a few of my favorites to talk about. It only took me 4 days to read and I would've finished it faster than that except for silly things like sleep, taking care of kids, etc. It was an entertaining book and well worth the time so if you like stories about things magical, scary, or unusual then you'll get a good selection here.

There is a short introduction of the author at the beginning of each story and one of the things that I like about this is that Deb Hoag would offer a little comment about the story to follow. Hoag's comments were often thought provoking and it caused me to read deeper into the story than I normally would have.

For instance, Hoag says of Rachel Turner's A Stray Child, "...I spent more time than I like to admit turning it over in my head, trying to puzzle out some of the mysteries of it...". Turner says that she was influenced by Silent Hill and Akira Yamaoka's soundtrack but having never seen the movie or played the games, I found myself thinking of the song Stinkfist by Tool. For me, the story shows how the lines between victim and victimiser can be blurred and interchanged and that there is an intimacy in violence that we don't often see on the outside.

I thought Deb Hoag's story, Phat is a Four-Letter Word, to be very interesting and it took a turn that I didn't expect. However, I couldn't help but picture Sandy as a drag queen although I can sympathize with her "fuck the polyester & the oversized tee-shirts" attitude. Finding stylish clothing when you are "plus sized" is often difficult and Sandy more than takes matters into her own hand.

Beneath The Skin, by C.M. Vernon gives a different twist to the were-creature tale and I think this story would make a great movie. I also couldn't help but think of Kafka's Metamorphosis while I was reading it.

You get a sense of the inevitable downfall of the main character of Catfish Gal Blues, by Nancy A. Collins, right from the beginning. However, the ending was almost like the punchline to a dark joke and it made me laugh after reading it.

I don't know how to talk about Mysty Unger's The Scene Changes without giving anything away. Deb Hoag says that this story took her by surprise and I have to agree. I think the thing that I liked about this story is that each scenario is a figurative foreshadowing of what awaits the main character. I would actually like to have seen this story continued further than 5 pages just to find out what would happens to her.

Getting My Game On

2011-11-28T17:28:00.001-05:00

I am going through serious withdrawal. I haven't played in my Pathfinder game since August, nor have I engaged in any other form of gaming since the beginning of October. So in a desperate attempt to feed my craving, I decided to try out the Pathfinder Society game at a local game store.

My experience with gaming groups other than my own has not been very good, with the exception of the Pathfinder game that I got to play in at Gen Con, and so I've always hesitated when it comes to organized gaming of this sort. It's not so much the people that are playing but mostly the lack of role playing that I dislike. I don't mind a good dungeon crawl every once in a while but the interaction between characters and the NPC's is one of the most fun things about the game. Also, coming up with creative ways to work through a situation (not just the standard, cut & paste response) is also a fun thing.

But I thought that I'd give it another chance because it's close to my house and it was Pathfinder. I've been playing Pathfinder since it came out so I'm comfortable with the mechanics of the game. The PFS scenario I played in was #3: 05 - Tide of Twilight & it was very challenging for low level characters. Basically we had to stop a group of druids form turning everyone into werewolves and we only had 2 days to do it.

I got a little frustrated during game play because we would be discussing possible ways to overcome a challenge and the guy running the game would shoot it down & tell us what we had to do to solve the problem. For example, we had to enter this area that was surrounded by really high walls made of thorns. If we tried to climb the wall or go through it, we were going to take at least 2d6 pts of damage. For a 5th level character, this isn't as much of an issue because they have the HP to spare. But at first level, that would probably kill some of us & we had no fighters or clerics in the party. In fact, there were 2 wizards, a rogue, & I can't remember what the other guy was playing but it was a magic user (not wizard, sorc, or witch). The only way to enter the area was to go through the entrance that was guarded by a fairy & her wolf.

Again, this wouldn't be an issue for a higher level party because they could just fight the NPCs and even though the fairy has DR it could be assumed that a high level party has better equipment & more spells at their disposal than we did. So we started brainstorming ideas to get into the clearing without taking any damage. First we thought we'd try burning the thorny wall but the DM said it wouldn't work. So then I said something about trying to talk to the fairy (I was playing an elf & I spoke Sylvan) and he basically said, "Look, all you have to do is wound her and she'll surrender but she has DR and you guys don't have cold iron so somebody cast a spell".

In the DM's defense, he didn't get the module until he arrived at the store & the only reason he was running was because there were 8 of us wanting to play & that was too many for one group. So this guy, who had already played the scenario at another game store, offered to run it for some of us and we were split into a low/high groups. Another point in his defense was that we only had 4 hours to get through the scenario and that could have been why he was rushing us through situations that could have potentially held us up.

Overall, it was a learning experience and it just serves to remind me that there is a difference between organized play and the campaigns that I've played in. I prefer the campaign style because we can usually take our time with things, unless there is a self-imposed time limit (like the 2 days or everyone turns into a werewolf issue) but generally, we're not rushed through trying to figure out the encounters. The games are generally a little more balanced, too because we try to take each class into account when we play - although someone usually gets roped into playing the cleric because no one wants that class.

That being said, I don't intend to give up on organized play. I think that if I could just get used to the different style of playing, it wouldn't be as frustrating to me.

Current mood: my ovaries hurt
Currently listening to: The Airborne Toxic Event - All At Once

It's The Little Things

2011-11-25T23:06:00.003-05:00

So I had a major freakout a few weeks ago and I shut this blog down. I bought a new domain and created a new twitter & Facebook account. I have yet to do anything with the new domain and last night was the first time I had used the new twitter account in a couple of weeks. The reason I did all of this was because I have been holding something in for such a long time that I felt like I was going to burst and I needed to get it out - whether is was to blog about it or tweet about it. It had gotten to the point where I felt like I need to vent or I was going to run through the streets screaming.

Basically, I've had some issues with my dad for a long time but I've not really spoken to him about them. We touched on them a bit around this time, last year but I never really felt a sense of closure from the conversation we had. I'm pretty sure that (almost) everyone has issues with their parents and mine were nothing special. My dad never beat me or sexually abused me but I felt like what I had to say was important...and yet, I tried to refrain from saying anything because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. And in the end, when we finally did talk, I exploded all over the place and nothing I said was coherent or made any sense. So again, I'm left without a sense of closure.

However, this time, I've realized that nothing that I have to say to him is going to change him. He's made peace with the way he is/the way he was and now it's up to me to deal with the issues that I have. He tells me that I have no idea what he went through growing up, raising us, & being married to my mom & wife #2 and that I have no right to judge his actions or his behavior and he's right. It doesn't make it any easier for me, but he's right. I begged him to tell me what it was that he had to go through but he refuses to tell me and so the only thing I can do from this point forward is to deal with it.

I think it would be easier, for me, to just shut that door and move on with my life. But I have 2 little boys who love their papaw very, very much and they don't understand what happened to me when I was little. I know that my kids love him very much and he has never done anything to hurt them and I can't take that away from them. It brings back memories of when I was little and when my grandmother passed away I had to listen to people saying very mean things about her. It made me very angry and I didn't understand why people were being so hateful at her funeral.

My mom and dad are also the only immediate family that I have left. All of my grandparents are dead and my mom's side of the family lives in Pennsylvania. I've never really had a chance to get to know them and there are some things that went on there which prohibits me from being very close with that side of the family. My dad's side of the family has pretty much passed away and those that are left are much older and live in Illinois (there is also a branch that lives in Southern Indiana that I do like but we can't seem to connect). So basically, when my parents pass away...I don't want to say I will have nothing left because I have my husband & my boys...but my connection to my past, the family that I grew up with will be gone and that makes me very sad.

I don't like to bring up really deep, personal issues on my blog for several reasons - 1) you never know who is going to be reading it and 2) I don't want to come across as a whiny and negative person because I'd like to think that I'm not that way in "real" life. I try very hard not to "unload" on my friends and family because I know that everyone has issues to deal with and when I put it in perspective, my life isn't so bad. I have a roof over my head, food in my belly, a husband who loves me, and 2 kids who are healthy, well behaved, smart, and loving.

But every once in a while, there are things that I keep inside me - little things - and they seem to fester and grow and grow and grow to the point that I feel like I am going to explode in a massive rage if I don't get them out. I don't like to hold grudges. I don't like to keep hurts and perceived slights and angers inside. It makes me a very angry and bitter person and I don't like that.

Current mood: cautiously optimistic
Currently listening to: Tori Amos - Under The Pink

Good-bye

2011-11-09T14:05:00.004-05:00

Gonna take a break from this identity for a while. There were/are a lot of expectations attached to it & I don't feel as if I can live up to them anymore.

Don't get all freaked out.

I'll be around.

Hey

2011-10-07T08:51:00.004-04:00

How's it going?

Current mood: payin' mah billz
Currently listening to: You Say Party! We Say Die! - XXXX

A Whole Lotta Nothing

2011-09-30T16:48:00.002-04:00

Have you ever had a period of time in your life when it seems like there is a lot going on but at the same time, it feels like there is absolutely nothing happening? That's about how things have been for the last few months - at least since June. I guess this is what it means when someone says that you are "spinning your wheels" or "stuck in a rut".

I thought that once the boys started school that things would pick back up and that I could get back into some sort of routine but that isn't the case. Then I started telling myself that once the fall started, things would be different but they aren't. I'm still stuck in this blah mood and nothing really seems to help.

I'm not exercising as much as I should be but I'm still going to Zumba. I'm still doing MOMS Club stuff but it's really only because I have to. I haven't been able to help out in the boys' classrooms because of jury duty (one of those things that happened while nothing was happening). I think at this point I'm just going through the motions because I have to but not really because I want to.

I wish I could figure out what it is that kick starts my brain to action, figure out what it is that gets me excited about things and interested in life again.

Current mood: meh
Currently listening to: Lostprophets - Start Something

Potato Soup

2011-09-11T20:12:00.004-04:00

INGREDIENTS:

3 cup diced potatoes
1 1/2 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth, divided
2 cups half-and-half
3 tablespoons butter, melted
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 cubes chicken bouillon
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a large pot, bring potatoes to a boil in 2 cups of broth. Cook until potatoes are tender, 15 minutes. Drain & reserve liquid.
2. Combine reserved broth & half-and-half in pot. In a bowl, combine melted butter & flour. Stir into half-and-half mixture over medium heat until thickened. Stir in potatoes, remaining broth, bouillon, & pepper. Heat through & serve.

I also add crumbled bacon & top with cheddar cheese.

Staying Positive

2011-08-08T17:12:00.000-04:00

The gym I go to did away with its group exercise classes last week & I've been so bummed about it that I skipped going to the gym all last week. Well...to be honest, I had every intention of going to the gym when I would wake up but the thought of not having that direction didn't help to motivate me & I'd talk myself out of going. That's not to say I was totally inactive, thanks to my Zumba Fitness game but nothing beats a good hour of cardio and/or weight lifting.

I went back to the gym this morning & the walls that used to house the classroom were torn down. Every cardio machine that the gym has was in use but one treadmill, so I reluctantly got onto it because it was the tiny, scary looking one. I started up my music & took a deep breath & pushed start on the treadmill but nothing happened. Apparently the tiny, scary looking treadmill wasn't working. Why the staff decided to leave it out on the floor if it wasn't working is beyond me. I got off of the machine & stood there, feeling very frustrated and a little pissed off.

One of the ladies that works there just happened to be walking by as I got off the machine & she stopped to say hello but I must have had a crappy expression on my face because she asked me if I was alright. I burst into tears & told her that since they cancelled the classes & there were no machines available, I didn't know what to do. I'm sure she's gotten a lot of grief over the last few weeks about the class situation so she could've been very rude but she wasn't. She very calmly told me that she would help me out if I needed it and told me that there were still options available throughout the week for group exercise through the end of August.

At this point, the elliptical machine opened up so I apologized to her for my outburst - it's really not her fault that all this stuff is happening. I got a really good workout on the elliptical machine and I also started my Couch-To-5K program over as well as lifting some weights this morning. I have a couple of songs on my fitness playlist that were used in the Zumba class I was taking & if it was possible to dance on the treadmill or elliptical, I did it.

I thought one of the pros of not having the group exercise classes would be that I wouldn't have to rush to be at the gym by 9 AM but that is definitely not true. If I want to get the cardio machine of my choice, I need to get there early. I also learned that I'm really not very good at dealing with change anymore. I used to just roll with the punches but as I've gotten older, especially within the last 5 years or so, I've developed a need for more structure. If I have any deviation from my routine, I feel completely lost & unmotivated.

There are many cons to not have the classes anymore but I need to focus on the positive aspect so that I don't get so overwhelmed again. I can set up my own routine, I can listen to my own music, & I have a lot of people that I can ask for help when I get stuck or I don't know what to do. And while I may not be able to take Zumba at the gym anymore, it's now being offered in a different location that is still close to me. It may cost a little extra but that class is worth it.

Gen Con 2011

2011-08-07T23:03:00.002-04:00

The last time I attended Gen Con was in 2007. I attended on a Friday and walked around the dealer hall with a friend the entire time. I didn't participate in any games & I played one demo after my friend made me do it. I had a good time but after going to Gen Con this year, I realized that I missed out on so much the first time I went.

This year, I wasn't able to go to Gen Con for all 4 days but I did get to go on Saturday. I have to be honest and admit that I really waffled on actually going. For one thing, I was going by myself and I found myself very anxious about occupying my time until 3 PM, when I was supposed to play in a Pathfinder game. I was also very nervous about meeting all of the people that I have talked to on Twitter & playing in said Pathfinder game. I consider myself a very social & extroverted person but only around people that I know really well.

I got to the ICC around 7:30 AM & purchased my badge and way too many event tickets. For some reason, I thought I was going to be able to fit 3 or 4 games into my day, before & after the Pathfinder game at 3 PM. I sat in the lobby for 10 minutes or so, looking through the program guide & then I decided to walk around to see what was open. I used a couple of tickets in the Open Game library, where I met 2 really nice guys (I want to say their names were Evan & Matt). These guys taught me how to play Elder Sign, a really cool board game with a Cthulhu-esque feel. I wish I had asked them if they were on twitter or had blogs because they were both pretty cool, very nice, & fun to game with.

I finished up the board game in time to go meet one of the aforementioned twitter people at Starbucks around 10 AM. Her name was Liz (@D20Blonde) and she was at the convention with her husband Kennon (@TheUniverseGM) & their adorable little boy. She mentioned that she was running an RPG called Fiasco later on that evening so I told her that I would love to play. She tweets about the game a lot so I was curious about how it was played. It turned out to be a super fun game but more on that later. Liz & Kennon were both very nice people & I felt very at ease with her. And just so you know, she's actually very tall in real life!

At this point the dealer hall had opened so I decided to spend some time in there. It was about 11:00 AM & I figured I'd spend an hour in the dealer hall and then I'd find another event to play. I was soooooo wrong about that. I spent 3 hours in the dealer hall & I know that I didn't see everything there was to see. I demoed a bunch of fun games but the 2 I had a lot of fun with were Monsterpocalypse & Bloodsuckers. Monsterpocalypse is a miniature game & I think the boys would have a lot of fun playing a building-smashing monster. Bloodsuckers is a card game for 2 - 4 people and you play either a hunter or a vampire. I would so kick Aaron's butt at this game. I also want to get the Elder Sign board game because it was a lot of fun.

I didn't stop to eat lunch until around 2 PM, where I had crappy food court pizza that was being served at the ICC. I didn't want to leave to find better food because my Pathfinder game would be starting soon & I didn't want to be late for that. I got to meet & eat pizza with Enrique (@newbiedm) but we didn't get to chat a lot. He ran a couple sessions of the Dragon Age RPG, which I want to play but he ran them on the days that I wasn't at Gen Con. He also has a system called rpgKids that he ran for some of the younger gamers. I've used his system to play with my boys & they have a lot of fun with it. Enrique was very nice & I wish I had been able to play in his games.

There were many highlights to my day but one of them was playing in Tracey's (@Rolling20s) Sand and Steam Pathfinder game. It was here that I got to meet Brice (@sandchigger) & Bill (@Alpharalpha). Liz was also playing in this game. I was really nervous about gaming with these people because other than "talking" to them on twitter, I had never met them before (with the exception of Liz & I had only met her briefly a few hours previous) & I've had bad experiences when I've gamed with strangers. It turned out to be such a fun experience & I have never played in a game quite like the way that Tracey ran it. He was very loose & creative with his style & it made it so easy to be comfortable with him. Liz, Brice, & Bill were all very fun to play with and there was a lot of actual role playing than I expected.

I wish our game session had been longer because the Sand and Steam setting was very interesting & I think it would be a great setting to spend a lot of time in. I got to play a halfling bard named Bubbles who was, indeed a stripper (an ongoing joke with @Misfit_KotLD). The concept was that we were put together as a team with the intention of completing a scavenger hunt. The first group to bring back the left back tooth of Sizzle Watts would then be able to join The Getters (kind of like a guild for people who retrieve items of all shapes & sizes). We were chased throughout the city streets, attacked inside a very posh theater, climbed through sewers & cesspools, & I even made friends with a flaming skeleton (for one round). In the end, our group was victorious (although the victory was not graceful).

I got to have a nice dinner with the Pathfinder group and a few other people at Scotty's Brewhouse & I got my picture taken with Darth Vader.

Holy crap, this is gonna be a long blog.

To wrap up the evening, I played in the Fiasco game that Liz was running. Bill was also playing in this game and we were joined by Tracey (@NachoPKB) & Jeremy (@WastexGames). This game was also another highlight of my day at Gen Con. Fiasco was effing amazing. It's kind of hard to explain the system seeing as how I've only played it once but I'll try. Basically you start the game by rolling 20 d6's (10 dice are white & 10 are black) and then you separate the dice by # (1,2, 3, etc.). For Fiasco you have different "playsets" that set up the scenario with tables for relationships. Every player has to have a relationship to the person on their left & right. It's not up to you to define your own relationship if you don't want to, the other players can do that for you. They pick a die & whatever # on the die they pick a corresponding category for your relationship (ours were Family, Work, Odd, Crime, Friends, & Romantic). Each category is broken down further by defining the relationship, i.e. Family - siblings, Odd - probation officer/criminal. There are other categories that can define your relationship, like Locations & Objects.

I'm doing such a crappy job explaining this game.

Let me just say that Liz & I had an Odd relationship where she was my probation officer & I was the criminal. Jeremy & I were partners in Crime, where we were the cons & we had a mark. We took turns going around the table & setting up scenes between ourselves and at least one other person at the table. My favorite scenes were the ones with Jeremy because he was so funny. We were strippers/prostitutes (my name was Kandi & he was Jenna) & we were both so dumb that our conversations could ramble on forever and nothing would actually be said. I'm looking forward to playing Fiasco with these people again on Skype & I definitely want to learn the game so that I can run it for my friends here at home.

So to make a long blog post even longer I have to say that my Saturday was friggin' awesome.

The Haunting of Harrowstone

2011-07-31T20:38:00.000-04:00

I've officially run 3 game sessions using this The Haunting of Harrowstone module and I think things are going really well. The module has the PCs summoned to the town of Ravengro to attend the funeral of Professor Lorrimar. After the burial of the professor the PCs learn that he has included them in his will and at the completion of one last task, he has bequeathed each of them a considerable sum of money. The kicker is that the PCs have to stay in town for 30 days to make sure his daughter, Kendra, is alright.

Strange things begin to occur during their stay in Ravengro & it's these events that are used to draw the PCs into the module. The thing that I am having trouble with is keeping the PCs from rushing to the main event before they've completed all of the necessary research. The research itself isn't important, except for the purpose of story telling but the PCs start out at first level & they're not high enough level to deal with the Big Baddies. There are several specific events that occur & I've thrown in several random encounters to try to keep them in town.

One of the events I created is that the home of a town council member is believed to be haunted and she posts a notice for help in getting rid of the ghosts. I was able to tie the home into the story of the town & more importantly into the story of the late warden of the desolated prison that lurks at the southern edge of town. I think it'll make things a little more interesting when they finally figure out what is going on. So far there has been very little combat and a lot of role playing. I think we only had one combat encounter in the 2nd & 3rd session.

I also created two NPCs that I'd like to use throughout the Carrion Crown AP. Bubbles (a halfling) & Squeak (a dwarf) have not played a huge role yet but I think using Bubbles has helped with integrating a new PC who joined the party during the 3rd game session. When one of the PCs asked why the dwarf was named "Squeak", Bubbles responded with, "You've never heard him fart!" I love playing halflings!

The PCs leveled up to 2nd after the 3rd session (I'm using the medium exp track) & I think that the party may be ready to explore the prison grounds during our next game. I'm really trying hard not to rail road the PCs too much but I'm not as good at being spontaneous as a DM. I'm hoping that with time & practice, I will get better at dealing with the random crap. I think it's mostly due to my lack of confidence in my DM'ing ability that holds me up the most because I'm afraid of the rest of the group not having fun.

One of the guys pointed out that there are times that I have to let the PCs fail & I think that's really hard for me to do because I don't want a TPK. It's happened several times in the 10+ years that I've played D&D and it's never fun, although there was one time the TPK was totally deserved because we rushed into a dracolich's lair & we all rolled really bad.

So my homework for our next game session is to try to relax a little more & to allow the PCs to choose a direction without pushing them that way, even if I know it's going to have disastrous consequences!

Fitness Mix

2011-07-31T19:59:00.000-04:00

Now that the gym I go to no longer offers classes, I have to start using the cardio & weight machines again. I'm going to miss the classes because I liked having someone showing me what to do & not thinking about my work out, just doing it. Oh well. At least they didn't close down, like last time. Since I'll be back out on the floor again I decided to make a fitness mix to listen to while I work out. Hopefully it'll keep me motivated and make me work hard!

Hey Baby (Drop It To The Floor) - Pitbull
Still Waiting for the Punchline - Boy Sets Fire
Rookie - Boy Sets Fire
Seether - Veruca Salt
This Boys in Love - The Presets
Long Forgotten Sons - Rise Against
Re-Education (Through Labor) - Rise Against
On The Floor (Feat. Pitbull)- Jennifer Lopez
The Fixer - Pearl Jam
An Honest Mistake - The Bravery
In the Dark - JoJo
Bulletproof - La Roux
You Know My Name - Chris Cornell
Pause - Pitbull
My Delirium - Ladyhawke
Endgame - Rise Against
Boyfriend - Ashlee Simpson
Take me back - Tinchy Stryder ft Taio Cruz
Reptilia - The Strokes
Volcano Girls - Veruca Salt
Twisted (Everyday Hurts) - Skunk Anansie
Splash (Feat. Coco) - Sub Focus
Phantom Pt II - Justice
TRON Legacy (End Titles) - Daft Punk
Cherry Bomb - Dakota Fanning
Holiday In Cambodia - Dead Kennedys
This Is Why We Fight - The Decemberists
Ready To Start - Arcade Fire
Everybody's Stalking - Badly Drawn Boy

Counting Down The Days...

2011-07-27T21:49:00.001-04:00

7 days until Gen Con
8 days until Zach's 6th birthday
20 days until the first day of school
28 days until Xander's 7th birthday
34 days until the first IU football game
45 days until Eash Bash
57 days until the first day of fall
95 days until our 7th wedding anniversary
96 days until Halloween
??? days until season 3 of Misfits

Old Vs New

2011-07-24T21:42:00.001-04:00

Just a little something to get re-motivated.

May 2011

July 2009

A Note To Self

2011-07-24T21:31:00.001-04:00

Dear Self,

I've noticed that you have really been slacking off on your weight loss over the last few months. It started right around the time the boys got out of school. You stopped going to the gym every day & you are not as careful about what you are eating. I know that everyone needs to rest now & then and that we need to treat ourselves every once in a while but you are starting to abuse those privileges.

You have worked too hard & accomplished quite a lot and I'm not going to let you throw it all away just because you are lazy. That's right. I said it. You. Are. Lazy. The alarm goes off in the morning & you want to shut it off and go back to sleep because you know that you don't have to be anywhere. Well listen here. You HAVE to go to the gym. Every day - Mon - Fri and you need to get off your butt on the weekends and do fun physical activities with your family. Why? Because you still have another 80 lbs to loose.

And you need to start tracking your calories and stop going above your daily limit. You want a candy bar? Too bad! You can't have that candy bar!!! Do you know why? Because you won't stop at just one bite! You'll eat the whole freaking thing and go back for another! Stop making excuses and just say no. Do you hear me? JUST. SAY. NO!!!

If you continue to be this lazy & self indulgent you will never reach your goal and you will gain back all of the weight that you have already lost.

Break is over. Get back to work.

Love,
Me

Busy Bee

2011-07-19T17:47:00.001-04:00

Life seems to move so fast when you have things to do.

I have two game posts that I need to write for the D&D Pathfinder game that I am running but I haven't been motivated to do it. I'm actually having a lot of fun running it but I find myself struggling to remember to do certain things. I write out an outline of things that need to be done in every session but it seems like I still leave things out. I also have to keep the PC's on a timeline & I find it really hard because I don't want to push them in any one direction. It's been mentioned in the past that the guys I play with hate to be rail roaded into anything. I did manage a few moments of improv with two NPC's that I want to bring into the game. I look forward to using them against the PC's.

I'm still doing stuff with the MOMS Club almost every week. I'm still serving on the board as club secretary and we're really trying to get the other moms involved in the club again. I think we have a really good executive board this year and I really look forward to all the fun stuff that we have planned. The thing about wanting the members to be more involved is that we have to be super involved as well. Although, once school starts in August, my kids will be in school for most of the day so I'll have to make sure we have more "mom-centric" stuff planned. Maybe I could get a MOMS Club D&D game started...

I've also been attending some of the local Garden Club meetings because I want to learn more about plants. There is a flower show out at the high school at the end of the month and I'm going to enter some of my flowers & maybe some of my veggies into the show. I really don't think I'll win anything because a lot of the people in the club have been doing it for Y E A R S but it's worth a try. I walked around with one of the members last night and asked questions for about an hour & a half after the meeting ended. Fortunately, he was very patient with me & I really think I'm going to learn a lot. One of the things he stressed was that there is no right way to do things and that I should ask the same question to as many people as I can and then take the answer that works the best for me.

I'm still going to the gym but I've been slacking on the every day part of it. I still go 3 or 4 days a week but it's hard to get motivated when I know I could sleep in if I wanted to. I'm hoping that it'll get easier once the boys are in school again. My weight loss has slowed down because I'm not pushing myself as hard as I was in the beginning. I'm also not being as strict with what I eat as I should be. Most of the time, I can keep my calories around 1600 but some days it just doesn't seem to matter & I'm going to eat what I want when I want it. I haven't been as careful about eating dinner out as I should be, either. I haven't started gaining the weight back so I'm giving myself this little "break" until the boys are back in school. The gym I go to is going to be making a bunch of changes but I'm hoping they are good.

I always feel kind of depressed around this time of year. I find myself counting down the days until the boys are back in school (29!) and wishing that it was fall (I wish it could be fall all year 'round). My kids are still little enough to think that school is exciting & I get to do a lot of the neat things with them & help out in their class rooms. And I still love to shop for school supplies and new school clothes, even if it's not for me!

Maybe I need to do a fall layout for my blog...that might get me blogging again.

Lots of things to do & not enough time to do it!

Another Year Older

2011-06-04T23:03:00.001-04:00

Today was a good day. The cat woke me up at 7:30 AM but that's ok because I wanted to wake up at a decent time today. The boys & I went to the Pendleton Farmer's Market & looked around for a bit. I got a little aloe plant for $1 but there wasn't a lot there.

Then I went to the gym for Casey's step aerobics class, where she kicked my ass for an hour. I also did day #3 of the C25K app that I have. It was so hot in the gym this morning & I was drenched w/sweat & it seemed like the run took a lot more out if me today but I finished it.

Both of the boys had a game at 3 so we did our duty (duty!) at the baseball field. Zach's team doesn't really keep score yet but the kids did well despite the heat. I didn't get to watch Xander's game because I help out in the dugout for Zach's team. Aaron said the boys on Xander's team did well but they didn't win.

My dad turned 60 today so his wife threw a surprise party for him. We were a little late because of the baseball games but we made it in time to see him smash cake in his face. My dad set me a text this morning wishing me a happy 34th but I was convinced I was turning 35 today. Math is hard. I thought my dad was 25 when I was born but he was actually 26.

I don't mind getting older because it's part of life. I'm happy with where I'm at in my life & when I think about the goals I had set for myself back in my 20's, I'm not disappointed, even if I'm not where I thought I'd be. I may not have my degree but I own my own home & I have a family, which is something I never imagined that I would have.

That's enough for now. I'm going to put my kids to bed, drink some Jack & Coke, & play Kinect Adventures with Aaron!

Regarding Privacy

2011-06-01T22:45:00.000-04:00

I've been blogging since '98, whether it was on geocities, myspace, livejournal, or on my own domain. I like to blog because I like to write but I'm not very good at keeping a journal. Blogging is so much easier to do because it's on the computer and, I'm not gonna lie, I like the feedback that I get about my blogs. People may not always comment on a certain post but I've had a lot of people tell me that they enjoy reading my blog.

I've always tried to be careful about airing personal issues on my blog for several reasons. 1) Misunderstandings are so much easier when someone else is reading what I wrote. I may write something, intending it to be funny; whereas the person reading it will think I'm trying to be snarky 2) I tend to want to blog before I think about what I'm saying and that's never a good thing 3) Most of my personal issues involve my husband and I just yell at him when he gets home from work. It's easier than logging onto the computer

I recently had some pretty major drama go down concerning someone in my life and I was so very, very tempted to get on here and to spew some pretty hateful things. I've had a lot of anger & hurt building up for the past few months & unfortunately it all exploded a few weeks ago. I've always said that my blog was a place for me to vent & rant & express my opinion of whatever it is that I want to talk about and if you don't like it, don't read it but the thing about the internet is that once you put it into writing and you click that little post button you can never, ever take it back. Even if you delete the post, there is still a record of it somewhere that someone can read. The same thing goes for Twitter & Facebook.

It's been hard pretending that nothing was wrong & that everything is rainbows & unicorns. I wake up every morning with my stomach in knots because I still think about what happened and I'm still very angry & hurt but unfortunately, I burned that bridge and there is no going back. I was tempted to make my Twitter & my blog private and I did so...for about 5 minutes. I'm not going to hide behind a screen of privacy when I usually don't talk about anything worth being private about.

I like posting blog updates about my D&D games and getting random comments from other gamers. I like posting silly mommy blogs and book reviews. 99% of the stuff I post here is not worth protecting. So I'll just take the lesson that my momma taught me when I was little and apply it to here & to Twitter & to Facebook (which is private, but only because I post a lot of pics of my kids). If I don't have anything nice to say then I just won't say anything at all.

It's something that I always took to heart but it seems that I forget that lesson because I was afraid that people mistook my being nice as being weak. I thought I was standing up for myself and in the end it just made things worse. If anything, I've learned not to put myself in that situation ever again.

Bloggity Posty Type Thingee

2011-05-24T16:38:00.000-04:00

I haven't given up on my blog! I've just been so busy lately that I don't have time to turn on my computer. I could blog from the phone but I don't like doing that. My phone doesn't give me all the options that the blogger thingee does.

I'm still going to the gym every day & I'm down 80 lbs. from Oct 2010. The little tracker thing on my page says it's 60 lbs and that's what I've lost since Feb. I didn't start using the myfitness app on my phone until I started going to the gym, which I started on Feb. 7th, 2011. It's really hard work & I'm totally not in the mood to exercise when I wake up but I've made it a habit now so I feel lost if I don't go to the gym in the morning.

I walked in the Mini Marathon back at the beginning of May and I'm happy to say that I finished it. The race (it's officially a race but I wasn't looking to beat anyone, I just wanted to finish it!) was 13.1 miles long and it took me 3 hrs. & 47 minutes to complete. The hardest part for me was halfway through, when we walked around the track at the Speedway. I don't know if it was the track itself or because I stopped for a pee break or because I was only halfway through. Once I got off the track, I got back into a rhythm of sorts but my feet & hips were killing me. I averaged about a 16:30 min. mile but my last mile was 18 minutes long because I knew I had plenty of time to finish & I was so sore.

The boys are both playing baseball and they're on separate teams so I'm at a practice or a game almost every night during the week. Thankfully Aaron is able to come home early to help out when I really need to be in two places at once.

I'm currently in the market for a potential group to game with on the weekend. I may wait to find a new group until after the summer so that I don't have any obligations while the boys are out of school. It'll be nice to have free time on the weekends to spend with my family but I know I'll miss playing D&D. I have a couple of options open but it's hard for me to game with people that I don't know well. Although I guess I'll never get to know people if I don't give it a try!

The MOMS Club annual banquet is tonight and I've been nominated for Member of the Year. I'm still not sure how that happened but it makes me feel really good to know that someone thought enough of me to nominate me. There are 2 other ladies who were also nominated and I'm pretty sure that the one of will win because she's a robot.

I'm still trying to read the Conan The Barbarian Anthology but I'm only 6 stories in. The stories themselves are very well written & I love the character of Conan but it's really slow reading for some reason. I've also started The Passage by Justin Cronin. I can't remember where I heard about it but I read somewhere that it's being adapted into a movie & it involves vampires (that don't sparkle). I also need to finish reading Those Who Hunt The Night by Barbara Hambly. I'm on page 125 out of 172 but it's in electronic format & I'm trying to read it on my phone so it's not the most convenient thing to do.

I need to go finish dinner & get ready for my banquet. That's enough blogging for now!

The Serpent's Skull - Games 4, 5, & 6

2011-04-05T17:40:00.001-04:00

I've been slacking when it comes to blogging about my current D&D game so this post combines the last 3 game sessions. I think that it works out because for the most part we have just been exploring, with a few minor skirmishes. The major combat/plot turn came during our last game session.

I've been having strange dreams lately. First, it was of Alton Devers, the first mate, and strange snake creatures. Now, I'm dreaming of the portal that I activated before we boarded the Jenivere. There is an indistinct individual placing Raven at the foot of the portal & when it fades I can see a shadowy creature behind it. I can't tell if the shadow creature is inside the portal or out. I think the heat is playing tricks on me because I swear I saw the shadow figure while I was on watch. I woke everyone up but we never found anyone lurking about the camp.

We have spent the majority of our time exploring, working our way down to the southern end of the island. Rumors have it that there is an old lighthouse down there so we are going to see if we can find it. If we can get the old lighthouse working then perhaps we can attract the attention of a passing ship. We know that there are other people on the island because we have encountered many of their traps (actually, Twanis keeps walking into them but he thinks he is good at finding them so we let him stay in front of the rest of us). Twanis was actually able to spot one of the traps and he had the ingenious idea of springing it and then laying an ambush for whomever came to check on it. We encountered 3 barbarians and quickly dispatched of them.

The game trail we are on led us to the cannibals' settlement. The others thought it was a good idea to go to each building to try and quietly subdue the villagers. We picked a lone hut on the outskirts of the village and Twanis tried to sneak up to the door but the inhabitant was alerted to his presence. It turned out to be an old witch woman and after several moments of intense fighting, we killed her & her pet monkey, too. Raven seemed particularly interested in an old spell book that the witch had in her possession and there were several useful potions & a wand of vampiric touch that I am able to use. We encountered several skeletons and more cannibals, as well as the chieftain but we were able to kill them all, with the exception of 2 prisoners.

We learned that the captain & Ieana had also passed through the village and that they went down into "the caves of The Mother" - an area sacred to the cannibals. They couldn't tell us much about the caves or what the captain & Ieana were doing there other than to say that those who go down there usually don't come out. It seems that Ieana was an exception but that the captain wasn't so lucky.

We spent the night in the lighthouse, which the cannibals had built their village around. There was a strange lightning storm in the southeastern skies that night, although there was no rain on the island and it lasted for almost 10 minutes.

Twanis and I went back to the main camp to let Aerys, Jask, & the others know we were still alive & we escorted them back to the village and the lighthouse. Three more cannibals came back to the camp while we were gone but Raven & Stanley convinced them to surrender. They gave us more information about the island, although there are many areas that they avoided. One area of interest was The Old Captain's hut. We decided to make a quick trip to the hut because it was close to see if we could learn anything more about what Ieana was looking for.

We found the old Captain's journal and learned that the Mother is actually one of the original shipwreck survivors that the cannibals are descended from. Her name was Nylithati and she's the one who converted the rest of the survivors into cannibals. The old ship was the Thrune Fang and the cannibals came to refer to her as Mother Thrunefang. They say that she is still living in the caves that Ieana visited but we discover nothing that will give us a clue about what she was searching for.

I thought that we should confront Ieana directly and avoid the caves of the Mother but the others thought we should investigate it, first. Aerys and the others lowered us down into the caves where we were immediately attacked by 2 nasty creatures called Festrogs. We killed them and after searching their lair, we found a note from Captain Kovack. It seems that he was under Ieana's thrall and only as he was being converted into a ghoul did he realize his crimes. Apparently Ieana is really a snake creature who was wearing the visage of a human scholar. He did not ask that we forgive him, those he shipwrecked upon the Smuggler's Shiv, but that if we encounter the monster that he had become, we kill him. No problem.

We moved further into the cave system and fought many lacedons, including Captain Kovac. The walls were covered with pictures of snake creatures devouring humans and we found an alter dedicated to a dark god named Ydersius. We also found a ritual for awakening the dark god, which seems to be what Ieana was looking for. Our final combat in the caves was with the Mother, who has also become a ghoul. She demanded that we surrender and be converted into ghouls to replace her "children" but we declined the request and killed her. Twanis & Raven both almost died during this combat but thankfully we had potions to heal their wounds.

The Shoe People

2011-03-28T20:30:00.000-04:00

I wrote this story back in 2006, a few months after my brother's death. I had this weird, fucked-up dream about not being able to express my grief and Aaron told me that I should write it down, so I did. I had completely forgotten about the story but Rachel asked me to submit it to an anthology that she was chosen for but it didn't get accepted. I'm not too upset about it not getting picked because it's not really finished.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The room is quiet, except for the faint scratching of pens or the shuffle of turning pages. We're in a small room, as we are every day. This is where we live. This is where we work and learn.

The silence is broken when The Tutor clears his throat. We look up from our files and focus our attention on the man at the front of the room. "Today's lesson will be on grief," announces The Tutor. I feel their furtive gaze turn towards me. I ignore them and turn my attention back to the file that I have been working on.

The Tutor then leaves the room and the woman next to me reaches over and touches my hand. "You know why he's doing this," she whispers. Some of the other women turn to face me and nod sympathetically.

I snatch my hand away from her dry touch. "Of course not," I snap. I don't like her. I don't like any of the other women in the room. But I'm not supposed to feel that way so I have to hide my dislike. But not today.

"I know that your brother's death was difficult to handle," she murmurs and the other women nod again.

My lips curl in an angry snarl, "You don't know anything," I reply.

She refuses to acknowledge my contempt and she tries to make eye contact. Her dull, bovine gaze sickens me and my eyes slide away. I focus once again on my files.

"You should be over his death by now. I am."

I hear her words and my fists lash out and I knock her from her chair. Her file flies from her grasp and we are engulfed in a blizzard of paper. A collective gasp fills the quiet room. A trickle of blood seeps from her nose and spills down her rubbery lips. I sit back down and start to flip through the paper in front of me, but I no longer pay attention to the words printed there.

The door creaks as it's opened and The Tutor enters the room. "What has happened?" he inquires. No one speaks up and the woman next to me is sobbing quietly as she gathers her papers. He walks over to her and offers his hand to her. "My dear, what has happened?" he asks again. My face is burning and I'm grinding my teeth but The Tutor has not noticed me yet.

The woman declines to answer and hangs her head. I clear my throat and The Tutor looks at me. His lips move to form the same question but before he speaks, I answer. "I hit her." His gaze hardens and he abruptly drops the woman's hand.

"I knew it," he snarls. He grabs the back of my shirt and hauls me roughly from my seat. I did not expect this and my legs become entangled with the chair. The Tutor starts to over balance as I am unable to support my weight and he lets go of my shirt. I fall unceremoniously onto the toppled chair and one of the legs snaps off.

"Get up and follow me," he grumbles to me. The Tutor does not offer me his hand. In fact, he places his hands inside his pockets, as if he does not want to touch me. I stand up and straighten my shirt. Everyone is staring at me. My spine is molded from metal and my cheeks are no longer flushed. Ice water is now coursing through my veins. Haughtily, I raise my chin and focus my gaze on The Tutor's back as he leads me from the room.

I realize that he is taking me through a door that I've never been through before, one that is always locked. The Tutor leads me to a parking lot filled with rusty cars. He stops at an old car filled with dirty old shoes. Inside is a man that looks exactly like The Tutor.

"You are to live in here with my twin brother," he says. I try to back away from the car but he lashes out and grabs my shirt. "You are a Shoe Person. You cannot stay with us anymore. You should have dealt with your grief by now". The Tutor produces a key from his pocket and unlocks the passenger door. The man inside the car pushes himself as far away from the open door as he able to go.

I try to fight The Tutor but I am not strong. He pushes me into the car and slams the door behind me. The man inside studies my face for a moment and then begins to cry. Tear tracks are etched into the grime that lines his face. He is swathed in dirty rags that were once clothes but have begun to disintegrate upon his body.

The Tutor locks the car door and walks back to the building that we had just left. I pound on the window but no one answers my calls. The man has stopped crying and now he is pulling at my sleeve. I shake his hand from my arm and continue to lash out at the window and scream until my fists are bloody and my vocal cords are bruised. No one is coming.

The man in the car tried to silence my screams but to no avail. He tried covering my mouth with his dirty hands so I bit him. Then he tried to knock me out but gave me a nasty bruise on my forehead instead. I gave him a black eye in return. When he realized that he could not keep me quiet, he glanced around often and he would pluck at my sleeves with nervous energy. Sometimes he would open his mouth as if to say something but he never did.

Now the sun is sinking below the horizon and the air is turning cold. I've never been outside after dark and I'm frightened. My hands hurt too badly to pound the window and my screams have become a dull screech. I slump down into the car seat in frustration and glare at the man. He really is a pitiful creature and he looks much too old to be The Tutor's twin brother. He is still looking about wildly and his hand claws at my shirt sleeve.

"Oh, stop that!" I rasp and I smack his hand away. He opens his mouth but then quickly shuts it. I continue to glare at him but now that I am quiet, he seems to calm down. He watches me for a few moments and then his eyes start to glaze over, as if he is looking inwards. Tears start to fall from his brown eyes and snake their way down his grimy face. Exhausted and frustrated, I start to cry, too. We sit together in the darkness, but we are alone in our little worlds.

When I woke up, I couldn't remember where I was. I sat upright in the seat and felt a strange panic bubble up in my stomach. I reached for the door handle but I could not open the door. I started to wriggle about in discomfort and the panic began to worm its way into my mouth. Panic has a very sour taste. Before I could stop myself, I started to scream again. My hands once again began their futile dance against the window.

I felt hands grabbing at me and in the darkness I could not tell where they came from. I shook myself violently but the hands were persistent and they began to slap and pinch me. I started to flail about and my head was slammed against the window. Stars exploded in the darkness around me and the air was knocked from my lungs. A strange coppery tasted flooded my mouth.

I closed my eyes and tried to quell the rising nausea. "Here, drink this," said a softly restrained voice. I opened my eyes to see the car flooded with moonlight. The man was trying to press something wet into my hands, a cup. I took the cup and sniffed at it suspiciously but I couldn't smell anything. "It's just water," he said. I realized that I was very thirsty and gulped down the water quickly. It stung as it rushed past my torn tongue; I had bitten it when I hit my head, but it was satisfying.

"More," I croaked but the man shook his head. "That was the last of it," he replied. "My brother will bring more in the morning." I groaned and rested my throbbing forehead against the cool window.

"Why did you knock my head against the window," I grumbled.

"I'm sorry. I just didn't want anyone to hear you," he answered softly.

"What does it matter if someone hears us? Are you afraid they'll let us out of here?"

"No, they won't let us out. We're not supposed to exist."

I looked at the man in confusion, "What do you mean? What are we?"

He looked at me sadly, "We're Shoe People."

I shook my head; none of this was making sense. "What are you talking about? The Tutor never told us about 'Shoe People' and I'm a 5th year Student. And why aren't 'we' supposed to exist?"

"Shoe People are those who grieve," he sighed. "We are a cancer within Society so The Government has decreed that those such as us are to be done away with and never spoken of again."

"But how do you know that? And how does The Tutor know about 'Shoe People'? And why do they want to kill us? What is wrong with grief? Why didn't he kill you? Why didn't he kill me? How long have you been out here? What are they going to say happened to me? And why…"

"Slow down!" the man interrupted. "I can't answer your questions if you keep asking them! First of all, the only people who know about the Shoe People are The Tutors, The Politicians, and The Priests. The Government has given these select classes this knowledge because they are the only ones who are qualified to deal with the problem." The man stopped and glanced around.

"What…"

"We shouldn't be talking about this up here." The man twisted around in his seat and reached into the pile of shoes behind him. He grasped something and started to pull. "Scoot over," he said as he started to crawl over into my seat. I pushed myself as far towards the window as I could go but it wasn't far enough. The man was nearly sitting on top of me and the smell of his unwashed body made me gag. He gave one final pull and the seat he had previously occupied flipped up, revealing a set of stairs leading down into darkness.

"Come on," he whispered. "No way!" I exclaimed. I shivered at the thought of what was down there. My fevered imagination conjured up vivid images of torture devices, rats, and roaches. "It's ok. It's not as bad as you think," he said as he crawled over the seat and made his way down the stairs. I heard him shuffle around for a second, and then a click and the stairs were illuminated with a soft light.

Swallowing my fear, I scurried over the seat and cautiously proceeded down the stairs. I heard the seat thump softly back into place. Below the car was a small room that had been roughly carved from the dirt. In one corner there was a pile of rags and on the opposite wall were shelves filled with strange objects. There was a chair that looked as if it had been constructed of sticks and shoe laces. The floor was covered with an old, dirty rug that looked as if it had once been expensive. A small table made of crates stood next to the rag pile and on it was a lamp and something that I had never seen before.

I walked over to the crate and picked up the object. It was square and covered with a rough, dry skin. Inside were thin sheets, like paper and they were bound to the skin. "It's a book," he said. The man came towards me nervously and extended his hands. "Please, be careful with it. Give it to me," he implored. His hands shook as he reached towards me.

Suddenly feeling malicious and wanting revenge for the headache he had given me, I danced away from him. I held the book up over my head and began to wave it about. "What do you want this old thing for," I teased.

"Oh!" he moaned. "Please! It's old and very precious!" The man began to rub his hands together and his dark eyes got very big. He looked as if he would start to cry again so I took pity on him and lowered the book. "Here," I said and I extended the book towards him. The man gently snatched the book from my hands and cradled it to his chest like a baby. Slowly he sat it back on the table and turned towards me.

"Now, to answer your questions. I was once a Tutor, like my twin. That is how I know about the Shoe People. The Government entrusts us with certain knowledge that we are not to impart to The Students. The only way you would become privy to that knowledge was if you were to enter the path of Politician, Priest, or Tutor."

"Then why are you telling me now," I asked.

"Because technically, I am no longer a Tutor and you are no longer a Student. Now be quiet," his tone became authoritative, as if he was once again standing before a classroom. "The reason I am not dead is because my brother took pity on me. How could he kill his own twin? As for you, I think he spared you for me," the man held up a finger as I opened my mouth to protest. "He wanted me to have a companion. What you and I make of it is our choice. To be honest, I do not want a lover and I am far too old for you, so you have no worries there." I must have looked relieved because the man smiled faintly.

"To answer your other question, The Government does not want Shoe People to exist because we are sad. We undermine the other people around us with our constant grieving. How are they supposed to be happy and productive members of Society when we are always crying – even if it is only on the inside?"

Living My Life

2011-03-22T13:38:00.001-04:00

I just realized that I haven't blogged for a while. I've been busy with going to the gym, playing D&D & Vampire, attending MOMS Club events, & doing stuff with the family on the weekends. When I get a free minute, the last thing I think about is turning on my computer, let alone blogging!!! I do need to update my game posts, though. We've had 2 D&D sessions and one of Vampire since the last time I blogged. I'll get around to that eventually.

I go to the gym 6 days a week but if I am unable to go on Saturday, I try to fit some sort of exercise into the family activity. We went to Mounds State Park in Anderson a few weeks ago and it was a really cool place. They have several trails and we hiked a few of the easier ones with the boys. Zach said that he hated walking but yet he was always the one in front. Aside from that, we had very little complaint from the boys. Aaron bought a state park pass & a trail guide for all of the state parks in Indy. I'm hoping that we can make a habit of going to the parks & hiking every weekend once it gets nice out.

We've been able to do quite a bit on the weekends, which is nice. We tagged along with Aaron when he went to Kentucky for CodpaLOUsa, where he was speaking a few weeks ago. We went to the Louisville Zoo, the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, & the Louisville Science Center. We got really lucky because the weather was warm and the day we went to the zoo, it sprinkled a little but we were able to walk around the zoo for several hours. Most of the animals where out and about and it didn't start pouring until after we left. It did rain the next day but we did the indoor stuff so it didn't really matter.

I'm doing really well with loosing weight. As of last week, I've lost 48 lbs. since October 2010. Again, I really didn't do much over the winter, so I'm not really sure how I lost weight then, but let me assure you that I've sweated off every single pound since starting my exercise routine on February 7th. I weigh myself every Wednesday and I'm actually looking forward to my weigh-in tomorrow. I should have been taking measurements every week as well but I just started that last week. As of March 14th, I've lost half an inch in my waist & neck and an inch in my hips.

I can really tell a difference in how I feel and my clothes fit me so much better than before. I'm slowly starting to see a difference in the way I look. Before, I would've gotten frustrated because I wouldn't see a change over night & I'd give up. I'm not really sure what I'm doing different or what the change in my mentality is but I'm finding it so easy this time around. I'm actually sticking with it long enough to see the change and I'm so excited about the eventual results. I got some of my old clothing out to try on and everything fits again!

I use the MyFitnessPal app on my iPhone to track all of my food & exercise. Eating at home isn't such a big deal because I do all of the grocery shopping & the cooking and I just try to buy lean cuts of meat & more veggies. I just have to be sure that I measure out all of my portions so that I know exactly how much I am eating. The worst part is making good decisions when we go out to eat - and let me just say that we eat dinner out a lot less now. I'm waiting for Aaron to get annoyed because every time he suggests a place to eat, I pull out my phone & check the restaurant with my app. I have vetoed Olive Garden several times now because their food is just so bad - 1440 calories w/82 grams of fat for the Chicken Alfredo (which is my favorite)!!!

I'm really looking forward to this time, next year. I need to loose about another 120 lbs. in order to reach my goal of 180 (which I think is still considered overweight but if I can make it to 180, the charts can all suck it!). I'm hoping I can loose at least half of that amount within a year's time. I really want to go to bed and wake up and be where I want to be but since it's not possible, I just have to take one day at a time & not give up on myself.

I just keep telling myself that once I loose all of the weight I'll be able to buy new (and cute!) clothing, I will be able to outrun zombies, & I'm setting a good example for the boys.

Vampire: Subversion of Indy - Game #3

2011-02-17T10:47:00.000-05:00

The new haven has been finished. It is a huge building, big enough for all of us to have our own space & to run my business out of. It's strange seeing my company name hanging above the door and to have my very own office and a staff. Christian wants to me to create some ghouls to help protect our haven during the day and to work for my business as well. I'm still very reluctant to do so but he has come up with a nice compromise - I will let them know what I intend to do & if they agree, then I will make them a ghoul. If they disagree, then he will wipe the conversation from their memory & they remain a normal human - thus protecting the masquerade & my conscience.

Tommy's own ghoul showed up on our doorstep, an adorable and tiny chihuahua named Spike. The dog is a great exmaple of Tommy (and Tobey's) loyalty and a reminder that we need to save them. I miss both of them very much. I wish I had told Tommy how I really felt for him before he was taken away by the Kiasyd. I think my feelings for Christian had clouded the issue but I find myself thinking about Tommy more and more.

Octavio invited us to his new haven/bar for a house warming/grand opening/Valentine's Day party. The bar is located in an old church in downtown Indy. I personally find the idea of living in an old church to be very appealing but I think it would bother Christian because of his aversion to crosses. Octavio had left a cross on the door into the bar & Christian's new ghoul Michelle had to lead him in. I really don't like Michelle. She's overly forward - not that I'm any great lady - but he freaking had sex with her right at the table. GROSS! I like the other two new ghouls, Chris & Rachel, a lot better.

Rachel & I got bored sitting upstairs so we went down into the basement because we could hear music coming out of it. The whole bar was decorated in the different levels of Hell - purgatory, limbo, the abyss. Well, seeing as how the basement was the abyss part, I should have known what to expect. There was an area with a dance floor and the rest of it was a giant maze. Rachel & I decided to check out the maze, against my better judgment, and we found examples of every sort of sin and vice you can imagine. I even found Alex down there, getting high. I took a picture of him to show him later. He's a nasty, jealous bitch and a great example of how vampires hurt people.

Rachel & I went back upstairs and I asked Christian if I could leave but he told me no. We got into an argument about how I should be having fun but really, the place was a nasty, vile place filled with unspeakable acts. Christian thought it was nice that vampires had a place where they could be themselves and not have to worry about breaking the masquerade but I said it was a celebration of evil and the dark side of vampires, and I don't feel like I'm that way. I told him that vampires hurt people and when he asked me how, I brought up his family and told him about Alex, even sending him the picture that I took down in the basement.

Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Miranda and then Octavio proceeded to tear her down and reveal her secret. Miranda was actually in her 80's when she was turned and her baldness was due to old age, not cancer as we all believed. Miranda finally let down her obfuscation and let us all see what she really looked like and it was heartbreaking to see her betrayed by her former lover. The only good thing to come of Octavio's little show was that Christian decided it was time to leave.

Meanwhile, Milla had been researching the way into the Shadow Lands and she finished her research several days after the party at Octavio's. Christian, Milla, Pathos, Teresa, and I (oh, and Spike) went down into the Monument at the Circle and there she took a drop of blood from each of us and then cast the spell. We woke up in a cocoon, which she freed us from and warned us not to look directly at the wraiths wandering around. We started walking in the direction that the Chantry had been located and I noticed that the terrain changed with my thoughts. I decided to experiment and thought to myself that I would like to have wings to fly and POOF! I grew wings and began to fly. It was a wondrous experience but unfortunately it began to attract unwanted attention from the roaming spirits.

At one point, Christian was confronted by the spirit of one of his ghouls, whom he had murdered because she had been feeding information about vampires to the Aranum. Vikki was very angry with Christian, and rightfully so. She claimed to be feeding them information in order to protect Christian and that she had been in love with him. Christian was able to persuade her that she was the one who had betrayed him and she went away.

Now we stand before the doors of the Chantry, where we have been warned that the halls are filled with demons. If it wasn't for the fact that I need the book inside the Chantry to free Tommy & Tobey, I would go home right now...

Ninja Weight

2011-02-16T10:46:00.000-05:00

Ninja weight is that weight that you unexpectedly gain or loose without realizing it's happening. Ninja weight gain is much more common than ninja weight loss because you don't pay attention to the ninja weight while you're eating a dozen donuts or an entire pot roast.

However, I am please to report that I have experienced the phenomena known as ninja weight loss. The last time I weighed myself was back in October 2010 & I weighed 350 lbs (yes I'm posting my actual weight. I'm a fat ass - you can tell that much by looking at me). I weighed myself for the first time last week since October & I was at 317. That did not sound right because I have not been trying to loose weight over the winter. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I've seen ninja weight gain lurking in the refrigerator and in my kitchen cabinets.

So I decided to weigh myself at the gym this morning because I figured it would be a more accurate measurement (it's just like the scale used in the doctor's office). Lo! I was at 314 on the gym scale!!!! I came home & double checked on my scale & it was the same!!!! So not only have I lost 33 lbs. since last October, I've lost another 3 since last week. A point of clarification - the 3 lbs that I lost since last week is not ninja weight loss, since I've been trying to loose weight since Feb. 7th.

Woo hoo!!!!

I Am The Cat!

2011-02-15T14:57:00.000-05:00

I want to blog about stuff but it sounds silly and boring when I write it. I also hate coming up with blog titles but I feel like they are a necessary evil. Plus, I'm distracted because I'm watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta reunion. I know, I know - it's a dumb show full of B.S. and useless crap but I still enjoy watching all of the Housewives shows.

I recently rejoined the gym and I've been working out every day. I've also been eating a lot better. I don't know what made things click this time but it's been a lot easier for me to stick to my goals. It helps having the iPhone apps to track my calorie intake and my exercise. It really makes you quickly aware of how much the calories add up when you don't eat the right portions. Even the things you drink add extra calories and knowing that makes it easier to drink water because I want to use those calories for food. It also makes me pay attention to what the food is like at restaurants or fast food places.

The Atlanta Housewives are a bunch of crazy bitches. Right now they are fighting about their age and who was famous before the Housewives show.

Anyway, I'm not really trying to follow any diet in particular, I'm just trying to keep my calorie intake under a certain amount every day. I still allow myself to have certain things that I like as long as I don't over indulge. The hardest time of the day has been the afternoon, right before dinner but I just have to tell myself that all of my hard work at the gym would be ruined if I over ate. I like going to the gym in the morning after I drop the boys off at school. I have plenty of time to work out and to come home and take a shower before I have to get the boys from school. I have weighed myself once but I'm not sure the scale I have at home is very accurate.

Valentine's day was nice. I spent the morning at both of the boys' parties and they seemed to have a lot of fun. They also got a lot of candy, which they really didn't need. They still have stuff from Halloween & Christmas so I'm sending some of that to school with Zach for the classroom treat box. I've been resisting the temptation to go dig into their bags but it's so hard! Aaron sent me some really pretty flowers for Valentine's Day but we decided to wait to go out to dinner because we didn't want to mess with big crowds of people.

Ok. So now I have a funny story, which Aaron may or may not like me blogging about but it's more embarrassing toward me than him so I'm telling it anyway. I wore some pretty lingerie to bed last night and made a big production of taking my robe off because I normally don't wear stuff like that. So then Aaron points out that the negligee was caught in the front of my g-string. I laughed about it and said, "Well, at least I don't have toilet paper hanging out of my panties."

So then I get into bed and we're getting close and Aaron runs his hand down my back and he says, "Um, honey, what's this?" and pulls a white, fuzzy thing out of the back of my panties. I thought it was a fuzzy from my new robe so I dismissed it when he puts his hand in the same spot and says, "That's not a fuzzy," and pulls a piece of wet toilet paper from the back of my panties. I DID HAVE FREAKING TOILET PAPER HANGING OUT OF MY PANTIES!!!! I had caught the toilet paper in my panties as I was pulling them up & when I stood up, it pulled the toilet paper through the toilet and broke it off from the roll.

I had felt something wet rub against my leg when I stood up but I thought it was my robe and that maybe it had touched the water when I was standing up. So yeah, I jumped up out of the bed and there was wet toilet paper on the floor in the bathroom. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to wake the boys up. Good times.

I have to go pee now.

And I'll be careful with the toilet paper this time.

The Serpent's Skull - Game #3

2011-02-10T15:08:00.003-05:00

We discovered more of the other passengers' stories and found that some of them had a reason for wanting to be on the island. Ishirou had a map showing the location of buried treasure on the island and Gelik said that if he could find the remains of The Night Voice, a Pathfinder Society* ship, he would be restored to good graces within that organization. Jask, of course, needed to find The Brine Demon for his evidence. Aerys & Sasha apparently have no ties to the island.

If the Captain & Ieana hadn't disappeared before we recovered from being poisoned on the Jenivere, I would almost accuse Gelik of poisoning us. In fact, I'll accuse him anyway because he's a nasty, hateful little man. I hope the cannibals eat him.

We explored the island a little more and found the remains of Captain Kovack & Ieana's campsite in an cove on the other side of Smuggler's Shiv. It's a lot closer to fresh water so we decided to go back to our original camp & move the other survivor's to the new site.

We also found 3 more shipwrecks, one of which was The Brine Demon, the ship that Jask told us about. The remains of the ship looked sturdy enough so we went on board to search for the information that Jask said was stolen from him. We found little of note until we enter the Captain's quarters, where there is a skeleton dressed in the tatters of once-rich clothing. The skeleton is clutching a chest made of darkwood in it's arms and after we open it, we find the documentation that will exonerate Jask of all his accused crimes, along with a magical dagger.

We decided to rest upon the ship for the evening & as the sun set a ghost appeared, raving about "traitors" and "mutineers". It demanded that we hand over the locket & Twanis admitted that he had removed a locket from the chest, as well. The locket contained the picture of a beautiful, red-haired elven woman & the name "Aeshamara" was inscribed upon it. The ghost disappeared after Twanis handed the locket over and we were able to take our rest without any harm.

We continued on in the morning, following Ishirou's map and eventually we found the place where the treasure was supposed to be buried. We dug until we came to a plug of wood that blocked our way and we also unearthed the skeleton of a dwarf that looked like it had been stabbed. Ishirou secured himself with some rope and tried to break through the wooden planks carefully but it was rigged to collapse inward. Thankfully the rope saved him from falling to the bottom, which was filled with stagnant water.

I cast light all the way down the tunnel and we added more rope to Ishirou's line so that we could lower him into the water. Unfortunately, there were several aquatic ghouls in the water and they ate half of Ishirou before we could pull him up. I suggested dangling his corpse above the water so that we could just pick the ghouls off but the rest of the party voted against it. In the end, we lowered Stanley into the water and he cast disrupt undead on the ghouls until they died. Raven took a potion of water breathing & dove down into the murky water, where she found a cache of money, gems, & several magic items.

*Randy is using a Pathfinder module but we are playing in Forgotten Realms. In this instance, the Pathfinder Society is based out of Candlekeep & is an organization that seeks out information.

Vampire: Subversion of Indy - Game #2

2011-02-10T10:11:00.000-05:00

This really isn't our second game but it's the 2nd time I've blogged about the game.

We ended our last game session standing outside of a church in Sabbat controlled Atlanta, GA, where we had just dispatched a Tzimisce and it's nasty flesh-crafted creatures. Now it was time to enter the church and seek out the Kiasyd for information on The Book of The Dead.

We go down into the empty cellar of the church & eventually we enter a room with no walls or ceilings and there are bookshelves as far as the eye can see. We have just entered the library of Alexandria, which was transported here before it could actually be destroyed. Christian asks the Kiasyd for information on The Book of The Dead & she tells him that she gave him the actual book once before, when he was mortal. We also ask her for information on opening a door to the Shadow Plane & she says that Christian has also done that before.

She then shows Christian a vision of his past, where as a human, he is obsessed with the occult & demons. He rapes his brother's fiance & murders her in an obscene ritual & his brother walks in on him in the process. Christian then makes a deal with Viktor to turn him into a vampire and using a Tremere ritual, he removes his own heart & places it in a safety deposit box. Viktor erases Christian's memory & he posses his brother's body & assumes his memories in order to avoid a deal he made with Lucifer. Christian is very skeptical about the truth of this.

The Kiasyd also disintegrates Tommy & Tobey when she finds out the book has been "destroyed". She said that if we can retrieve the book she will bring the boys back. Matthias, the Tremere Primogen, had Tommy and Tobey retrieve The Book of The Dead. He was attempting to cast a spell from the book on New Year's Eve, when the earthquake in Indy disrupted the spell, sending the entire Chantry into the Shadow Realm, where it teeters on the edge of the Abyss. Matthias was trying to bring a dhampir into existance in order to start Gehanna. I asked her why anyone would want to bring about the end of the world & she said, "He who can start a thing can end a thing."

We spend 2 days in the library and when we leave, we are greeted by Alex (Christian's ghoul) & Milla, a Lasombra. She offers to pledge fealty to Christian & The Camarilla in return for his protection because the Archbishop of the Sabbat has called a blood hunt upon her. Milla is able to communicate with the spirits of the dead & she tells us that Matthias is calling out for help from the Shadow Realm. Using paths through the shadows, Milla is able to bring us back to Indy in a matter of minutes.

Teresa is in desperate need to hunt so we go to several bars on Mass Ave, where we run into Miranda, the Toreador Primogen, and her new "child", Portia. Portia is actually a Methuselah who has dominated Miranda & is seeking to do the same with Christian in order to gain control of the city. Another Methuselah shows up & begins to fight with Portia and we stake Miranda and run away.

Vlad Tepes & Viktor are waiting for us in our car. We find out that Portia is really Helen of Troy & the other Methuselah is Menelaus & the two are forever locked in eternal struggle. In fact, all the wars that have ever been fought in the U.S. is a direct result of those 2 vampires and now they are in Indianapolis.

In other news, my sire is actually Saulot. I was one of his ghouls and when I was attacked by Peiter, I had enough of Saulot's blood in my body that I was turned. Vlad has offered to restore my humanity or to teach me the path of Golconda. Christian also wants our blood bond removed so that I can make the decision without any prejudices.

Coming Soon...

2011-02-08T10:19:00.000-05:00

This is just a blog to say that I plan on writing up my last Vampire & D&D sessions. Right now I am going to play a couple games of Zuma & listen to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Then I need to take a shower & pick Xander up from school. Then it will be lunch time. After that I have to do the laundry and pick up the house. I may get the blogs written today. One of them, at least...

Move Along

2011-02-05T23:22:00.001-05:00

I'm upset with a certain someone about something. The sad thing is that I can understand why that someone did what they did but it still upsets me that they did it.

Oh well.

It doesn't mean that I'm submissive. I'm able to view the issue from their perspective. I also realize that their view holds a bit of truth & logic to it whereas mine is purely an emotional reaction.

Oh well. I'll get over it. I always do.

Tumblr

2011-01-27T22:06:00.001-05:00

I have a tumblr page. This is mostly to keep from cluttering up my blog with lots & lots of pictures of pretty things. It's not very important and pretty useless when you think about it. But I like it. And so should you.

The Serpent's Skull - Game #2

2011-01-27T12:19:00.002-05:00

We found out that we had been shipwrecked on an island called Smuggler's Shiv. The island is located in Desperation Bay, off the coast of Chult and it is not located on most maps (this is a Pathfinder module but we are playing in Forgotten Realms - instead of the Mwangi Expanse, we are in Chult). The island is notorious for wrecking ships and it is haunted by the ghosts of drowned sailors. At one point, settlers built a lighthouse on the southwest corner of the island and tried to establish a colony but it has since been abandoned. Rumors say that a group of soldiers were shipwrecked on the island 70 years ago and their cannibalistic descendants roam the island searching for other shipwreck survivors.

We located the remains of The Jenivere and decided to see if we could salvage any supplies from the wreckage. Raven (Rob's character) & Twanis (Eric's character) both fell off of the rope & into the water as they tried to climb down onto the ship, so I decided to tie the rope around my waist and I had Stanley (Al's character) lower me down. I was able to find some more rope on the deck & I pulled all three (yes, Stanley fell in as he was climbing down, too) onto the ship.

After fighting a sea scorpion we searched the captain's quarters and found a case of potions, the Captain's log, & several other items. From there we went into the galley where we discovered the body of the cook shoved into one of the cabinets. He had strange puncture marks on his shoulder & neck but we were unable to determine what caused them. This being the first dead body that I have ever witnessed, I found I could not stomach the sight and I vomited up the meager breakfast I had that morning. We also found the body of the first mate, who looks to have been attacked by someone with a rapier, although he died from poisoned wounds inflicted by the sea scorpion.

I'm pretty sure it was the first mate who brought us all to safety and he may have returned to the ship for more supplies, only to be ambushed by the sea scorpion. The fate of the rest of the crew is unknown, although they may have been poisoned the same as we were and if they were sleeping in their quarters on the third deck, they would've been drowned when the ship ran up onto the rocks. The captain is missing, along with Ieana - another passenger who was on board. She was the only passenger who had private quarters on the ship & when we searched them we noticed that all of her things were missing. I think the captain is probably dead since he took nothing with him.

Upon examination of the Captain's log, it's easy to see that he had been suffering from some sort of madness as the trip progressed. His entries start out normal enough but as time goes on, he begins to ramble about Ieana, writing her poorly composed love poems and ranting about how he can not please her or catch her attention. There are days when he has not written anything at all. Other days are entries about the mutinous crew or about how his first mate was trying to steal Ieana away from him. The most important entry says that he changed the ship's course at Ieana's request and that he hopes that once they land the ship they can finally be together.

We took our supplies back to the camp and informed the other passengers of what we found. We decided to free Jask, the prisoner who had been chained below deck. This has caused some strife between the survivors and we find ourselves divided into 2 groups. Jask says that he was framed for a crime he did not commit and it was because he uncovered corruption within the Illuskan government. The strange thing is that he had been living in Waterdeep for the past 10 years and someone tracked him down to charge him with this false crime. Something else that is strange, Jask says that the man, Avret Kinkarian, who has the proof he needs to expose the corruption was on a ship that also crashed upon this island. If Jask hadn't been chained up, I would almost think he is the one responsible for our being here.

Raven, Twanis, Stanley, & I have decided to explore the island while the others stay with the camp. Thus far, we have found a strange species of bird that Sasha says is rare and very valuable. She would like us to bring one back for her but Twanis doesn't want to because she will probably sell it. Sasha, herself, is a very strange bird. One minute she is very nice & almost fun and at other times she is hostile and sneaky. She has a very pretty tattoo on her back that she said her mother gave her but when I asked her about it all she said that it was a permanent reminder of a temporary emotion.

Stanley woke me up the other night because Sasha had gone off on her own. It turns out she was only going to relieve herself but when I tried to go back to sleep I had strange dreams the rest of the night. I dreamt that I was in a rowboat and that Alton, the first mate, was sitting across from me. He was obviously dead because he had the wounds on him that we discovered on his body. He leaves me on an island full of snakes and goes back to the ship for more passengers but never comes back. I awoke at a strange sensation and discovered a small snake crawling across my belly. Stanley also had a dream about trying to bail water out of the sinking ship with a wooden soup spoon.

I would dismiss both dreams except it's not the first time that Stanley or I have been visited by strange visions. In fact, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for a dream that he & I both shared - of opening a portal. It seems that Raven wouldn't be here, either because she came through the portal that I opened. I'm not sure what this means but she seems like a good person, if somewhat stern. She says that she doesn't remember anything of herself and yet she can rattle off the anatomy of a sea scorpion without a moment's thought. She also claims to have no memory of magic but she cast a magic missile by accident during combat with the giant spider.

Twanis is also a mysterious figure. The half-elf has was on the ship before we boarded and he had been traveling for some time. He says that he had been working with Ieana on something and when we pressed him, he told us that he was looking for a cure to his ailment. He was reluctant to tell us about his "sickness" because he has been met with skepticism from others. Once we assured him that we wouldn't mock him, Twanis told us that he will disappear and then reappear with no memory of where he has been. Time moves normally during these strange blackouts and when he regains "consciousness" he is in a different place from where he disappeared. I asked if he was every with anyone when he disappeared and he said that he was but when he tried to talk to them about it, they were too frightened. On one hand, I hope this happens while he is with us because I want to see what happens. On the other hand, I'm afraid of where he will end up on this island if that happens to him here.

We really haven't found anything else of note, except for the wreckage of another ship. Upon further investigation, we were able to determine that it wasn't The Brine Demon, the ship that Jask told us about. We also found clean drinking water & we decided to follow the stream further inland. Our first contact with other humanoids came when we dispatched a yellow musk creeper & it's zombies. The zombies look like they had been sailors but I can't tell how long they have been dead.

Lasher

2011-01-25T22:05:00.002-05:00

At the end of The Witching Hour, book 1 of the Mayfair Witches Trilogy, Lasher has finally become flesh after spending several hundred years as the "spirit guide" to generations of Mayfair witches. He has coerced Rowan, the designee of the Mayfair Legacy, into running away with him. Michael, Rowan's husband, has suffered a heart attack & spends his days convalescing and waiting for Rowan to come home.

In book 2, Rowan & Lasher spend several months traveling all over the world in order to "escape" the Mayfairs & the Talamasca. At first, Rowan is with Lasher because she wants to study this inhuman creature & because she feels an unatural attraction to him. But as the months pass, Lasher alternates between a loving "child" who suckles at her breast & an incestuous beast who rapes her because he wishes to produce another offspring like himself.

It finally comes out in this book that Lasher is a Taltos - "...a being born knowing what they need to survive independently and immediately upon birth grow to be nearly seven feet tall and able to do everything adults are. Their brains are complex, they are hypnotized by music, and are beings of reason," AnneRice.com. A Taltos is a being of Celtic mythology, a giant that the "little people" seek to breed with in order to create a race of giants that will wipe out the human race. When a Taltos mates with a witch, there is a 1 out of 1000 chance that he will create another Taltos and it will spring from it's mother's loins a fully developed creature, ravenous for it's mother's milk. They actually sound like really creepy mother fuckers (no pun intended - well maybe a little).

Rice goes further in book 2 and tells us Julien's actual story and how he became the only male Mayfair witch that could command Lasher. This story, in and of itself, was very interesting and it filled in a lot of gaps that were left from book one. We also get to hear Lasher's story and about his earliest memories as a Catholic priest of St. Francis and some of the Talamasca's darker secrets are hinted at. Rice also focuses on some of the younger Mayfairs, along with Rowan and Michael and they are also very interesting, if somewhat disturbing, characters.

When book 2 ends, you are left with the feeling that the Mayfair story is complete; their ghosts have been laid to rest and the family curse is no more, & that it is the end of the series. I imagine that some people may have been surprised when she published a third book in the series but I am reading the book some 18 years after it was published, so I know that the story is not done.

I liked this book a lot more than The Witching Hour. I feel like it was a lot easier to read, the story flowed a lot better, & it was much more interesting. Oh - and it wasn't 1000 pages long. I think part of this may be due to the fact that there wasn't nearly as much dialogue in book 2 and so Rice didn't have to be as repetitive as she normally is. I have a hard time actually ~~comprehending (not sure if that's the right word)~~ empathizing with a character's disbelief or misunderstanding in most dialogue and it just comes across as tiresome to me. Of course, with a story about witches & ghosts, a lot of the characters are going to disbelieve & misunderstand a lot!

I'm looking forward to reading book 3 because I'm interested in how she's going to continue the story after the main antagonist is dead. I have a theory on how she is going to do this but I'm only about 25% certain of what it will be. I think that Emaleth (the daughter of Lasher & Rowan) was able to have a baby while she was out looking for Rowan & that she left it somewhere when she came in to see Rowan. Ok, maybe I'm only 5% sure of what she is going to do. I just have to read it and see!

P.S. If you have read the third book don't ruin it for me!!!

The Book Bucket List

2011-01-25T17:27:00.002-05:00

Last year, I read 2 of the books on my Book Bucket List - The Bell Jar & Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels & Stories but the great thing about books is that it seems like when I finish one book, there are still 200 more that I want to read. So here are several more books from my Bucket List that I want to read in 2011.

Complete Stories And Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
The Complete Chronicles of Conan - Robert E. Howard
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The House Of Mirth - Edith Wharton
Orlando - Virginia Woolf
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Importance of Being Ernest - Oscar Wilde
Dubliners - James Joyce

Aside from the Conan books, I want to try and expand my literary world outside of the normal fantasy & supernatural books that I normally like to read.

Patience Is A Virtue

2011-01-22T15:35:00.001-05:00

Here we are, heading into the fourth week of 2011 and I can't help but think to myself that I'm a big, fat failure when it comes to my resolutions. I've made a very weak attempt at eating better and I've not started exercising nor have I gotten back on my medications. I'm still very short tempered with the boys most of the time & I still yell at them way too much. I'm still not very interesting and I haven't learned Spanish or how to play the bass, etc.

In the midst of wallowing in lots of self-pity/self-loathing I came to realize something - most of my resolutions are not the sort of thing that one will accomplish over night. Loosing weight and changing my eating habits and becoming fluent in Spanish and being a better mom & wife all require one of many things that I lack - patience. So maybe I need to revise all of my resolutions and simplify it to learning how to be patient with myself and others and the rest will follow.

I think that if I had more patience with myself I wouldn't become discouraged when I don't see the results that I THINK I should be seeing. This is the way my mind works - I resolve to do something, I do it once or twice, I'm not as good at what I'm doing as I THINK I should be or it's not as easy as I imagine it to be, I don't get the results that I expect, I get discouraged/frustrated and I quit. Maybe it's not just lack of patience. Maybe it's having expectations that are too high. Maybe I expect more of myself than I'm capable of and I need to lower my standards. Maybe I'm just really good at visualizing things but not so good at making them a reality.

I don't know. Things seemed so clear when I started writing this and I think I'm confusing myself again. I'm over thinking it. It reminds me of that song from Rocky Horror Picture Show, when they sing, "Don't Dream It. Be It." I am really good at dreaming things but I'm not so good at being them. I wish it was that easy.

Fuck. Now I'm distracted by watching RHPS videos on YouTube.

Where was I? I lost my train of thought. Be more patient with myself. Check.

Oh! I did start playing D&D again, which was on my list. So I'm not a total failure.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Subversion Of Indy

2011-01-20T19:19:00.003-05:00

It has just occurred to me that I have been playing Vampire: The Masquerade every other Friday, on a regular basis, for the past 5 or 6 months and I haven't blogged about it once. This is probably due to the fact that honestly, I don't know what the hell is going on. Rob is such a great story teller & he is really good about giving us just enough of the story to confuse the hell out of us - or at least confuse the hell out of me.

My character's name is Charlotte and she has recently been brought over as a vampire (about a year in game time). As a human, Charlotte was a web designer & a geek and she's been able to maintain her former lifestyle by taking on clients & working in the evenings and everyone know that geeks only come out at night. The origins of her making were very violent. She was driving down the street late at night and was ripped from her car & attacked by a Tzimisce named Pieter, who left her to die. Charlotte was saved by a Ventrue named Christian (Randy's character), who in turn became her mentor & they share a haven. Charlotte is a Caitiff, a clanless vampire and Cristoff, the Prince of the city, charged Christian with "raising" her. Charlotte's best friends are a a Nosferatu named Tobias & a Gangrel named Tommy.

It's a little difficult to fit 6 months of game play into one blog post, let alone remember everything that we've done and that's not to mention the fact that Rob put out several different story threads, some of them meant to distract us from the real challenge. If I remember correctly (which I'm probably not & I'm sure Randy will correct me) the Prince charged us with investigating some deaths on the east side of Indy. At the same time, we had to track down Pieter, the vampire who made me (I think, that is still out for debate) and a member of the Sabbat. Then there was a matter of spotting werewolves in the city & trying to figure out what connection they had to Cristoff, along with the Primogens who came into power on the same night that the Prince did. We also had to figure out what the deal was with the rampant corruption of the Indy police force. Christian's sire was "murdered" by a Tzimisce creature & the same creature was sent after us. Then there was a fey named Nualla who turned out to be a demon & the release of Vlad Tepes a.k.a. Dracula, & an obscure clan of vampires called the Salubri. Yeah, there was a lot going on.

We figured out that Cristoff had made a deal with the werewolves, several vampires of the other clans, & Pieter to overthrow his sire & the former Prince of the city (whom he diablerized). In exchange for their help, Cristoff allowed the werewolves access to Monument Circle because it was a sacred space for them, he made the other vampires the head of their respective clans, & he allowed Pieter's brother Viktor entrance into the Ventrue clan by means of a magical ritual. Viktor was meant to be a spy in the Camarilla but ended up switching his allegiance to the Cristoff. We wrapped up the story when our characters attended a New Year's Eve Party & it ended with the appearance of The Red Sign - a harbinger of Gehanna.

Our new story begins with Christian making a play for Prince of the city and actually getting it because he had information on all of the Primogens which they did not want the others to know. Charlotte thought it was a bad idea for Christian to become Prince because he would spend most of his time playing politics but he thought it would give him more freedom. The official position of the Camarilla is that there is no such thing as Gehanna & he thought that the new prince would hinder us in our investigation of a way to stop Gehanna. During our last game session we have ended up in Atlanta, GA because we need to speak to a Kiasyd & we were just attacked by a Tzimisce & some of it's flesh-crafted creatures.

The Witching Hour

2011-01-20T14:35:00.000-05:00

"The first in the Mayfair Witches series, The Witching Hour introduces the fictional Mayfair family of New Orleans, generations of male and female witches. This tight-knit and deeply connected family, where a death of one strengthens the others with his/her knowledge. One Mayfair witch per generation is also designated to receive the powers of "the man," known as Lasher. Lasher gives the witches gifts, excites them, and protects them. Unsure as to exactly what this spirit is, the Mayfair clan knows him variously as a protector, a god-like figure, a sexual being, and the image of death." - AnneRice.com

This book took me FOREVER to read but once I got past the very beginning & into the actual history of the Mayfair family (around page 275) the book became more interesting. This is actually the second time that I picked up the book to read it. I only got about 50 pages in the first time before I lost interest in it. I think that if Rice had separated this into 2 books, it may have been easier to get through. The history of the family itself took almost 400 pages and I think if she had ended book one with the family history & the death of Deidre it would've been better.

I've read several of Anne Rice's books & I have the same complaint with this one that I did with the Vampire Chronicle - she is too repetitive. Rowan thinks that Michael is a fine piece of man-meat. Fine. Tell me that once or twice & I get it. Tell me a hundred times & I get tired of reading about it. Michael loves to restore old houses. Cool. He's restoring the Mayfair Mansion. Awesome. Do I need to hear about the color of the hardwood floors or the Victorian sink fixtures more than once? No.

Something I realized while reading The Witching Hour - Anne Rice & Laurell K. Hamilton have similar writing styles and I dislike the same things about both of them. But like with Hamilton, I can't stop reading the series now that I've started it. Lasher, book 2 of the Mayfair Witches, has started out with more promise and I am interested to see where Rice is going with the story. Plus the 2nd book is only 578 pages, versus the 1043 pages of The Witching Hour. I'm sorry but in order for me to read a 1000 page book quickly, you gotta keep my attention from start to finish & that's not an easy feat for any author.

Being Human - Syfy VS. BBC

2011-01-19T13:47:00.002-05:00

"Eugh, there's a US remake of Being Human? Seriously America you really need to just learn to understand UK accents." - @Warlach

I've been watching the BBC's Being Human from episode 1 so I was a bit skeptical about a remake. For one thing, the BBC's version is very dark, violent, & sexy. I can't see Syfy being able to bring that to an Americanized version of the show. I'm also very attached to the characters in the BBC version - Mitchell, George, & Annie and it's very hard for me to imagine anyone else filling the shoes of the actors who portray them. Another appeal of the BBC's Being Human is the scenery - the show takes place in Totterdown, Bristol & I like seeing the buildings, etc. The music in each episode has a very "indie" vibe & while that may be easy to reproduce, ~~I don't know if Syfy will carry that over~~ - scratch that, the music in episode 1 was pretty good.

But if there is one thing that I'm "good" at, it's giving TV & movie remakes a chance. Sometimes you can be pleasantly surprised at the re-imagining of the original concept. So let me list the pros of Syfy's Being Human: Sam Witwer. I'm a total fan girl when it comes to Sam Witwer - he was Darth Vader's apprentice for fuck's sake!!! So when I heard that Witwer was going to be in the Syfy remake I had to set my DVR.

Now for the disappointment - the story line for Syfy's Being Human is almost exactly like the BBC's Being Human. I've already seen the BBC version & I really don't want to watch a watered down version - despite Sam Witwer. I already know how season one of BBC Being Human ends & I'm really hoping that Syfy takes the show in a different direction once they get the characters established. Syfy did change George/Josh's (the werewolf) story by introducing a sister & episode 1 ends with her trapped in the room with Josh as he's getting ready to change. That little tidbit, in & of itself (oh, & Sam Witwer), is what is going to draw me back to watch episode 2.

Apparently the cast members & the producers avoided watching too much of the original show because they didn't want it to affect the remake. I have to say that I thought Sam Huntington, the actor who played Josh, was trying to play him too much like Russell Tovey's George. Tovey has a unique way of delivering his lines or maybe it's in the timing but it's not something that could be duplicated easily & I do think that Huntington was trying to mimic that. There wasn't enough of Sally (the ghost, Annie on the BBC show) to really determine what she's going to be like. The BBC's Annie is very upbeat & sometimes goofy and to be honest, I'd like to see Meaghan Rath play Sally a little darker. Witwer pretty much hit the mark with Aidan, the vampire, but then again, it's probably hard to mess up tall, dark, & brooding (and I may be a bit biased).

I'll keep watching the show and hope that at some point it will pull together & become great. For one thing, the original Being Human was only 6 episodes long & Syfy's show will be 13 episodes. There has to be some deviation from the original show in order to fill out that much time. I also hope that Syfy keeps the darkness, the violence, & the sexy with the little glimmers of humor that the BBC show has because it's one of the great things about the show.

Oh! And for the record - I love British accents.

Zygmunt

2011-01-12T22:01:00.001-05:00

Go to Wikipedia and hit random. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”. Third picture - no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
Use picnik.com to put it all together.

Just Because

2011-01-12T19:34:00.001-05:00

I think I'm going to go buy some paints and some canvas tomorrow because this painting inspires me.

[Insert Title Here]

2011-01-09T21:41:00.002-05:00

I've already broken my resolution to eat better but I think I'm doing better about not beating myself up too much. I do pretty good with breakfast in that I'm actually eating breakfast and it's generally healthy. You can't really go wrong with oatmeal. Lunches were easy because I'd have a salad & that's pretty healthy, too. We did pretty good when we went grocery shopping last weekend so we really only have healthy food in the house for dinners.

I'd also have a couple of healthy snacks during the day & it helped to appease my hunger, although that first day was pretty rough. I'm using an app on my iPhone called myfitnesspal that tracks my daily food intake & I only had 1400 calories the first day. The app has it calculated that I should get around 1800 a day. I decided to try and reach my goal of 1800 calories the next couple of days & it helped out with not feeling so hungry by 8 PM.

But then we decided to order pizza for dinner one night & I ate way too much of that & we had left overs so I had it for lunch the next day, as well. I also ate way too many Doritos & a couple of peanut butter cups when the guys came over on Friday to play Vampire. We bought some appetizers to have on Saturday during the football game & our dinner consisted of taquitos, pizza rolls, & chicken strips - so not good for you but it tastes so good! I didn't bother logging my food in on the iPhone app and the stupid thing narced on me.

It's a new week & I did much better today although the bacon popcorn that I had at Rob's house probably wasn't good for me even though I didn't eat a whole lot of that. It's hard to resist the unhealthy snacks that are usually present at the table during Vampire and D&D, although the bacon popcorn was my fault. I just have to learn to limit the amount I eat & to not get frustrated and give up when I don't reach my goal for that day.

I also resolved to start playing D&D again and today was the first time I've played since August. The guys decided to quit playing City Of The Spider Queen because it was insanely freaking hard - the module is basically a TPK with every encounter. The module is designed to take at least 5 PC's from 10th level to 18th but how any of them survive long enough to make it that far is beyond me. Add to the fact that when I dropped out back in August, it left only 3 PC's in the party plus an NPC cleric that Rob was running.

Randy & Rob have been playing around with bringing back a character of Rob's named Raven. Rob has played her from 1st level up to an epic level - I want to say 24th but I could be wrong. We had toyed around with a mini-campaign to get Raven out of Hell (she ended up there after the last game session - long story) & I played a fallen angel who was trying to redeem herself by helping Raven escape Hell. Randy ran it for me & Rob but we only played one or two sessions. I'm not sure why we didn't finish our little escapade because I know Rob & Randy love that character & the whole story line that goes with her.

The new game we started today has Raven out of Hell but with no memory of who she is or where she is from. We're playing gestalt characters of first level & mine is a witch/ranger - those two classes compliment one another very well. Her name is Saoirse (pronounced SEER-sha) and she's a young girl from a good & loving family. Her parents are a bit superstitious when it comes to arcane magic and have tried to keep her away from it but when she meets an old hedge witch, Saoirse jumps at the chance to learn magic (hence the gestalt classes).

Saoirse and Stanley, Al's character, have been traveling together for some time and once we finished what we had set out to do, we booked passage on a ship to return home. That night we eat dinner on board the ship & when we wake up, our ship has wrecked and we have been stranded on the beach along with the other PC's & 6 NPC's. I can't really talk about too much more without giving some stuff away in the game but it should become somewhat apparent with the next game session, so I'll blog more about it then.

New Year Resolutions

2011-01-01T19:10:00.003-05:00

Here they are, in no particular order.

1. Become a more interesting person
2. Learn how to play bass
3. Learn to speak Spanish
4. Get back on my medications & stay on them until I get healthy enough to not need them
5. Loose weight & get healthy enough not to need medication
6. Play with my kids more often
7. Try not to yell at them as much
8. Get my uterus fixed
9. Start playing D&D again
10. Blog more often
11. Get back into creating art
12. Participate in NaNoWriMo
13. Spend more time with old friends
14. Stick with the plans that I make with other people even if I'm having a "down" day
15. Read more books
16. Spend more time living my life instead of daydreaming about what I don't have
17. Paint the rest of my house
18. Improve my relationship with Aaron
19. Try not to beat myself up to much when I stray from my resolutions
20. Improve my eating habits

Tron: Legacy

2010-12-19T16:24:00.002-05:00

It was awesome. The music was awesome. The fight scenes were awesome. The clothes were awesome. Quara's (sp?) hair was awesome. The Dude was awesome. So what if it was basically a rehash of the original Tron? It was still awesome!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T00:39:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I'm gonna eat lots of turkey & mashed potatoes. I might take a nap. I will visit with some of my family. I'll probably play Uno with the boys or we'll color. I'm not going shopping during Black Friday. I'll probably take a shower at some point.

That is all.

Silent All These Years

2010-11-09T15:26:00.002-05:00

So I haven't been up for much blogging lately. No reason and lots of reason for that. Stuff that's going on that I don't really want to talk about in a public setting and the rest of it not so interesting. I took a break from playing D&D so I haven't had that to blog about. Really, the only other thing to talk about are the books that I've read - The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick, and some other stuff that I can't quite remember right at the moment. And honestly, I have nothing new or original to say about any of those so I'm not going to bother writing about them.

I'm currently reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I've wanted to read these stories for quite some time but I finally remembered to look them up the last time I was at the library. I've been watching the new Sherlock on Masterpiece Theater on PBS and it's really good. The show is set in current times and has Sherlock & Watson solving mysteries in 21st century London. Watson is played by Martin Freeman - who you may know as Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Sherlock is played by Benedict Cumberbatch and I think the people in charge did a good job picking him. Not an overly attractive man but one who commands attention, nonetheless. Plus, he's got a really cool name - Benedict Cumberbatch - it's just so, so English! I friggin' love it!

Halloween was fun but I couldn't really get into the "spirit" of things (no pun intended). The boys had a good time, though so I couldn't really ask for more. My dad & Melinda came out and walked around the neighborhood with me & the boys. We were out for about an hour and a half and Xander finally decided he was tired & cold. Not many houses were giving out candy but the ones that did more than made up for it. We visited my brother's wife after we got done with trick-or-treating because she was at the old house where she & Charlie used to live. It's amazing to see the things her brother has done with the house. It looks really nice and he & his girlfriend have their artwork up all over the walls. It makes me want to pick up a paint brush or pencil and create something!

I've had the urge to create something artistic for a while now but nothing comes to mind. I want to paint something interesting but painting has never been my forté. I want to participate in NaNoWriMo as well but when I try to come up with something to write about, it's already been done. I want to write something original that is interesting and exciting! Blah. I was joking when I said I'd like to write about zombie unicorns but really, I can't think of anything clever to write about. I also thought about writing a story using Lulabelle, my pixie character from Rob's game but I think it would get annoying, fast.

In happier, lighter news I did get a kitten. Her name is Pumpkin and she is adorable. So far The Curse of the Kitty has not showed up with her. Our 2 previous cats - 'Frick & Binx, didn't quite work out for several reasons but mainly because they wouldn't stay in the house. But to be fair to both of them, they were both feral when I tried to housebreak them and they were both boys - 2 conditions for being incooperative. Pumpkin is a girl and she's never been outside and so far it seems to be working. I had been reluctant to adopt a kitten because I didn't want to go through the process of litter training one & I was worried about having such a small creature in the house with 2 rambunctious boys. It seems to be working out so far because she's had no problems using the litter pan & the person we got her from already had little kids so Pumpkin was used to their erratic ways.

Ok. I think I'm done now.

Zombies Vs. Unicorns

2010-10-21T14:56:00.002-04:00

It's a tough choice for me to decide which is cooler - zombies or unicorns? Zombies are my all time favorite monster because of how fucking creepy they are. I'm talking about the old school zombies that move slow and seem easy to out run but before you know it, they are swarming you and snacking on your juicy brains. However, the 4-year-old girl in me still squeals uncontrollably in delight when I see a unicorn. Unicorns make me want to put on a frilly tutu and braid daisies into my weave.

So when I saw this book sitting on the shelf at the library I thought it would settle this ages old debate that has been tearing me apart since I was a wee child. Unfortunately, it did nothing more than fuel the fires of my inner struggle since it wasn't really a story of zombies versusing unicorns. Zombies Vs. Unicorns is actually a book of short stories about either zombies or unicorns. Apparently there was a debate raging all over the interwebz a few years/months/days/minutes ago about which is cooler and it evolved into this book. Each story is thoughtfully labeled at the beginning with a picture of either a zombie or a unicorn so that you won't accidentally read a unicorn story if you are on team zombie or vice versa.

At the beginning of each story the editors, Holly Black (Team Unicorn) and Justine Larbalestier (Team Zombie), give their opinions on why the story is either cool or lame based on whether the story is about zombies or unicorns. The book was in the young adult section at the library and it was pretty obvious to me that it was geared towards girls. Most of the zombie stories were love stories and the unicorn stories were about ass-kicking unicorns and girl power and as lame as that might sound, it was actually kind of cool because it gave a different twist to the traditional myths/stories. Plus...I am a girl...so it appealed to me...

Surprisingly there were no stories about zombie unicorns and that kind of disappointed me but Aaron pointed out the fact that zombieism is a disease and unicorns are traditionally known for curing diseases. And while I agree with both statements, it's also a freaking story and rules can be changed to make the ultimate awesome story about zombie unicorns. If there can be zombie strippers there can also be zombie unicorns. I'm just saying...

National Coming Out Day

2010-10-12T09:57:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was National Coming Out Day in the US (it's Oct. 12th in the UK). What does this mean? "Coming out" or "being open" means that a person is up front about being LGBT. Unfortunately, people are still made to feel ashamed for being LGBT. People are bullied, beat up, denied equal rights, & murdered for having a sexual preference that is different from the majority. National Coming Out Day is a day that is used to raise awareness for gay rights.

I've always had gay people in my life, ever since I was a little girl. My uncle was gay and I have a gay cousin. I've had many gay friends and one of my best friends is gay. There is nothing you could tell me that would persuade me that there is anything wrong or deviant or evil about these people. LGBT people are just like you and me. They live, they love, they eat, breath, shit, & sleep JUST.LIKE.YOU.AND.ME. And for someone to sit there and say that LGBT people don't deserve the same rights that straight people have, that their relationships don't compare to the relationships between a man & a woman is...I think it's DISRESPECTFUL, SHAMEFUL, DISCRIMINATING, IGNORANT...the list could go on and on.

Recently there was a big controversy here in Indiana about a bakery, Just Cookies, refusing to make rainbow cookies for the LGBT group at IUPUI because it went against their "core values" and it was "obscene". As much as I hate the fact that this cookie shop would deny the group their cookies based on the sexual preference of it's members, the owners of the bakery have a right to provide services to whomever they wish. However, I think the difference here, and this is the reason why I think the bakery owners were wrong, is that the IUPUI Diversity Group wasn't promoting hate against another group and there were no "obscene" phrases or pictures being put on the cookies. They simply wanted rainbow cookies to celebrate being gay.

I could understand if the bakery wanted to deny serviced based on messages of hate (ie the group wanted cookies that said FUCK GOD) or they were really obscene (ie they had pictures of people having anal sex). It's discrimination based on sexual preference and that makes it wrong. Unfortunately, there are no laws in Indiana that protect LGBT people from being discriminated against based on their sexual preference. You can bet that if a white bakery owner refused to make cookies for a black group in celebration of Black History month or the Black Expo the bakery would've been kicked out of the City Market for discrimination.

I guess there was one good thing that came out of the bakery refusing service to the IUPUI group, it's that it brought National Coming Out Day into the media spotlight and by doing so, showed a lot of LGBT kids that there are groups and people out there who will support them. And while it's nice to celebrate those things that make us different and unique, maybe we should have a day to celebrate being human beings. It would be nice to have a day or a week or a month to bring us all together to celebrate the fact that even though we are from a different race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, culture that we are all human beings and that we share this planet and the world would be a much better place if we could remember that.

Things I'd Rather Be Doing

2010-09-30T13:01:00.002-04:00

1. Playing Dragon Age
2. Taking a nap
3. Playing D&D and hanging out with the guys
4. Reading a good book
5. Sitting at a bon fire @ my neighbor's house
6. Playing Rock Band
7. Drinking rum

Instead I have to clean the house & put away the laundry. Being a grown up is no fun sometimes.

FYI - I posted this with my iPhone so if this looks funny - blame it.

Wicked Lovely & Ink Exchange

2010-09-25T06:21:00.000-04:00

Wicked Lovely, written by Melissa Marr, is about a 16-year-old girl named Aislinn & she is just like every other typical teenage girl, except for one thing - she can see fairies. Aislinn's grandmother & mother also had the Sight and her grandmother has taught her how to live as if she can't see the fairies in order to avoid their attention. Things get interesting when, despite her best efforts, she is chosen by Keenan, the Summer King to be his new Queen.

Intertwined in the story is Aislinn's budding romance with Seth, a mortal, and Keenan's relationship with Donia, the Winter Girl, and Beria, the Winter Queen. Beria killed the original Summer King (Keenan's father) and bound Keenan's powers so that he couldn't be a full-fledged king unless he found his queen. Keenan has spent the last 9 centuries searching for his queen and Donia was at one point a potential candidate.

There is only one problem, Aislinn doesn't want to be the Summer Queen. Keenan's attention has an unintended side effect because Aislinn has started to change and she must choose to take the test or become one of his "Summer Girls". When Aislinn asks if there has ever been a girl to avoid choosing, she is told that only one has escaped this fate and that was through death.

Ink Exchange takes place in the same world that Marr created in her original book but it follows Leslie, who is a friend of Aislinn's. Leslie is also around 16/17 years old and she has experienced several traumatic events in her life - her mother left, her father is an alcoholic who gambles away all of their money, and her drug-addicted brother creates a situation where Leslie is assaulted and raped by his drug dealer.

Leslie decides to reclaim her body by getting a tattoo but she hasn't found the right one. She befriends Rabbit, the tattoo shop owner and after she spends months searching for just the right tattoo, he finally shows her a book of personal drawings that he has done. Leslie is immediately drawn to a shadowy image of a pair of eyes surrounded by a tribal looking design and framed by a pair of dark wings. What Leslie doesn't know is that she has chosen the mark of Irial, the King of the Dark Fey. Using the tears of the Shadow Court and the blood of the King of the Dark Fey, Rabbit binds her to Irial, allowing him to feed through her.

I didn't realize that these books were in the Young Adult genre when I first picked the books up but it quickly became apparent as I read them. Aislinn is friends with Seth, who is hot, dark, pierced, & a man-whore but he develops feelings for her and so he decides to reform his man-whore ways and informs her of his feelings, allowing her to progress the relationship at a speed that she feels comfortable with. What teen-aged girl wouldn't read this and swoon? What bitter, middle-aged woman wouldn't read this and gag at the sickly sweet fantasy of it all?

It was really hard for me to suspend my disbelief when I read these books - not because of the fairies but because of the relationships that Marr creates between the male & female characters. Although, I guess I'd rather my teenager read a book that has strong female characters and has the men treating them with love and respect. Maybe it's the cynic in me, but I, myself, prefer my heroes & heroines more flawed. It was really hard for me to relate to the characters or to feel any sort of compassion for them or their outcome. Seriously? If a king offered me the chance to become a queen, I'd take it!

Just Another Day

2010-09-23T09:41:00.002-04:00

I never thought that I was one to carry a grudge. I usually feel better after I speak my mind and I can let things go. But I find that as I get older I'm having a hard time letting some things go because I feel like the other person is disrespecting me by saying or doing the things that they have done. I also feel like letting go of the issue, even after I let the other person know what I was thinking and/or feeling, is allowing them to push me around, take advantage of me, walk all over me - whatever you want to call it.

Holy crap. I'm turning into my mother.

Carrying around this much anger & resentment is starting to take it's toll. I don't want to be a bitter person but it's really hard to be happy when I have this much negativity floating around in my head. Of course, I just have a hard time being happy and there is no rhyme or reason to it. I was trying to explain to Aaron last night that it doesn't matter what my situation is like, we could be rich and I could be skinny and I would probably still be miserable. I think that depression/bipolar disorder is genetic and some people are just predisposed to be this way. I also think that I've been this way for so long (since third grade or thereabouts) that I wouldn't know any other way to be.

That sounds like such a crappy excuse but I don't have any other explanation for it.

Further thoughts...

I'm not trapped. I'm not worthless. I have made the decisions that led me to this point I in my life and I can make choices to change my situation. I am not responsible for other people's actions but I am responsible for how I react to them. By continuing to be upset or bothered, I am giving them a power over me that they wouldn't otherwise have. It's just so hard to let go because I feel like it's giving them permission to say or do things to me that aren't nice. I guess it just comes down to me telling them how I feel and if they can't or won't respect that, then I need to cut those people out of my life. It's not about holding a grudge. It's about moving on and surrounding myself with people who love and respect me.

But how many chances do I give someone before I realize that they don't have any consideration for my feelings? That's the hard part...

Worst DLC Ever

2010-09-22T19:19:00.000-04:00

I downloaded the Witch Hunt DLC for Dragon Age today and I was super excited and eager to find out what happened to Morrigan after the conclusion of the final battle with the Arch Demon. Basically, you team up with an elven fighter, a human mage, & your dog (if he was one of your companions from the original game, I assume - not sure who else would join you if you didn't pick the dog up for your party) to hunt down Morrigan because she stole some artifact from the Dalish elves. It took me 45 minutes to play and all I had to do was go to one place and get one item and then go to another place and get a couple of more items, slaughtering Dark Spawn along the way. There was one big battle and it was ridiculously easy and at this point I was extremely disappointed.

You find Morrigan after the battle with the Verlaugh or whatever the hell it's called - it's basically a gianourmous preying mantis. The conversation that your character has w/Morrigan assumes that you turned her offer down in the last game - which I didn't, so that sucked. She doesn't offer anything interesting other than that Flemeth isn't really dead (lame!) and that changes are happening in the land, for better or worse (LAME!). Then you have the option of letting her go or of killing her. I opted for the first choice since we parted as friends in the original game and it just shows Morrigan stepping into the portal she had created. End of game. So I went back and opted to kill her, expecting a big battle, and all I got was a crappy movie showing me stabbing Morrigan in the stomach and then she falls into the portal. End of game.

This DLC sucked.

BIG.WASTE.OF.MONEY.

Oh and the game trailer makes the DLC look much cooler than it actually is.

Just Shut Your Mouth

2010-09-17T16:20:00.002-04:00

I love watching The Real Housewives shows on Bravo and I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's because of my love of fantasy/science fiction and some of those housewives are definitely living in a fantasy world. I'm also quite sure that at least one of them (Ramona Singer) is from another planet. But even though the shows not intellectual brain food, every once in a while there is an episode that makes me think (gasp!).

I was catching up on some back episodes of the Real Housewives of DC and I noticed that Stacie Scott Turner seemed real quick to wield her race as a weapon. For instance, there are 2 situations where she accuses Cat of having an issue with someone because they are African-American but I think in both of these situations she probably had a very different reason for her attitude. Cat probably left the dinner party early because she had gotten there on time and a lot earlier than everyone else and she probably did feel uncomfortable but not because everyone was black but because she didn't know anyone there. And while I, myself, like Tyra Banks, I could see how Tyra would be very loud & obnoxious in person. Although, I obviously don't know Cat in real life and she very probably could be a raging racist (she definitely has an ignorant view of Americans in general).

I don't think there is anything wrong with someone having pride in their heritage, their culture, their gender, or their race but it seems to me that if someone was really proud of those things they wouldn't be quick to use them as an excuse for other the way other people react to them. That doesn't sound like pride to me, it seems ~~more like an excuse to be hateful towards other people~~ like ignorance or maybe denial. Maybe they don't like you because you are a bitch, not because you are black/white/purple or female/male. I think that people need to sit back and evaluate themselves before they are quick to shout racism/sexism/ageism to the world.

At the same time, I don't think it's fair that white people aren't allowed to be proud of their heritage because of some fucktard's who messed it up for the rest of us, nor do I feel guilty about slavery just because I'm white. I have never personally owned a slave nor would I ever own a slave (why would I, when I have children?). Didn't Africans capture members of opposing tribes and sell them to the white people to own as slaves? So in theory, aren't black people also responsible for slavery? And I'm not using that argument as an excuse to justify slavery because it's wrong no matter who perpetuated it.

I know I'm not the most open-minded person on the planet, I have my little prejudices and preconceptions of people based on how they look. But I'd like to think that I'm not a racist. I don't hate people just because they are black or white or Hispanic and I am willing to change my opinions of people after I've gotten to know a person, for better or worse. I don't think it's possible to be color blind, either. I think we are trained to notice the difference between one another, whether it's hair color or skin color or eye color. I may notice whether someone is white or black but I think the difference is that I don't care.

I also think that everyone - no matter their age, weight, race, or sex - has suffered discrimination of one form or another in their lifetime. I don't think that racism, in and of itself, is exclusively the domain of black people anymore and I think it's ridiculous when black people claim to be incapable of being racist. There is another instance on the RHofDC when Stacie & her husband are having dinner with Lynda (another housewife) and her boyfriend, who just happens to be black. Lynda talks about how she is from Georgia and the fact that she has also been discriminated against because of her race. The eyes of all three black people at her table widen in shock and they look at her like she grew a second head. It is possible to be discriminated against if you are white, people!!!

When I was in the 8th grade, I went from living in a small town in New York and attending a mostly white school to living in Indiana and going to an IPS school. It was a massive culture shock to me because I wasn't used to being around people who were so different from me. There were 2 girls in particular, who chose to make my life a living hell for several reasons - 1. I was the new girl 2. I was a lot smarter than they were and I wouldn't let them cheat off of me 3. I was white and they were black - and I'm not saying this lightly, they would constantly make fun of me and be hateful to me about the color of my skin. If that's not racism, then I don't know the definition of the word.

Edit: I added to this post because when I originally wrote it, I was under a time constraint and I didn't get to convey all of my feelings on the topic.

Current Obsessions

2010-09-14T16:03:00.000-04:00

Autumn - this one is big on my list and anyone that knows me knows that this is a given. Unfortunately, the weather is not cooperating here in good ol' Indiana. It's been hot and dry and it doesn't look like we'll get the beautiful oranges and reds and golds normally associated with the fall. Instead, everything is turning a dry, crunchy brown. On the plus side, I guess that since everything will be extra dry there will be some good bon fires this fall.
Books set in or around the British Isles - I just finished reading a book, Raven Black by Ann Cleeves, that was set in Shetland. Cleeves does a wonderful job setting up the murder mystery so that I had no clue who the murderer was until s/he was revealed at the very end. But Cleeves did an even better job of describing the Shetland scenery and the festival of Up Helly Aa, which I would love to see. I also really liked the descriptions of London and of Highgate Cemetary that Audrey Niffenegger wrote about in Her Fearful Symmetry, the book that I read before Raven Black. It inspires a deep longing to visit these places. I think that I will check out some books on the history of that region the next time I'm at the library.
The Suburbs by Arcade Fire - I love how mellow Win Butler's voice is, in comparison to the mostly upbeat music. My absolute favorite song on the album is Ready To Start. I can't say exactly what it is about this song that I love but there's just something about the music itself, the drums and the guitar and the keyboard and the way it all meshes together with Butler's voice. I'm sure there's all sorts of proper musical terminology that I should be using but I have no idea what it would be. I think the album version of the song is better than the video, which looks like a "live" performance but I love the girl on the drums, in her frilly, white dress. She is freaking adorable.
Carmel Apple Spiced Cider - I usually get a white chocolate mocha whenever I go to Starbucks but lately I've been getting spiced cider instead. I think, subconsciously, I'm trying to influence the weather into turning cooler by drinking this distinctively autumnal drink. Whatever. It's good.
Painting every room in my house - Two down. 4 to go. I painted the living room an dark orangish-red color called pumpkin bar. My kitchen is now a hot chocolate color and I decorated it with owls. I found 3 little owl trivets at Good Will back in June and I spray painted them a flat black and they are hanging on the wall behind the stove. I made a valance out of an owl-print fabric and it has some beautiful turquoise, orange, and greens in it. I bought some new turquoise ceramic flower pots. I think it ties really well into the orange living room. I'm going to paint my bedroom a dark red and Xander wants his room yellow, while Zach wants his to be a light blue. I'm torn about the bathroom. I love my pink & black shower curtain and it would look nice with gray walls. But I found this awesome typography shower curtain at Target that has lots of browns and grays and the walls would look really good in a golden color - which would tie into the more fallish color palliate that I have going on in the rest of the house.
Kittens - I miss having a cat but my last couple of experiences with cats have not been good. Frick peed all over stuff and Binx wouldn't stay in the house and clawed up the screens in the windows. But sometimes, I just want a fluffy kitty to snuggle with. I want to listen to the rumbling purrs and and feel it's soft fur. I really want a fluffy white or black kitten or one of each.

Her Fearful Symmetry

2010-09-08T16:02:00.002-04:00

I just finished reading Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger and for the most part, it was a good book. The ending, however, just ruined it for me. Niffenegger spet 393 pages building up the story to have it just fizzle out in the last 7 pages. I feel like she put so much time and effort into her research & description of Highgate Cemetery that when it came time to the actual story, she forgot where she was going with it.

Niffenegger really does a great job of describing Highgate Cemetery and the surrounding area, creating a romantic picture of London. If only Niffenegger could have given that much attention to the end of the story... I really want to explain my dissatisfaction with the final pages but it would just give everything away...oh well, it's not like hundreds of people read my blog.

The book follows the twins Julia and Valentina as they move to London to inherit their aunt's apartment on their 21st birthday. Their aunt (Elspeth) and their mother (Edie) are also twin sisters but they have been estranged for the past 21 years and their inheritance comes with the request that they must not allow their mother or father into the flat. It's not hard to figure out that their mother & aunt's deep dark secret is the fact that they switched identities and that the aunt is actually their mother, although this isn't reveled until the end of the book.

Roger is the downstairs neighbor and he was Elspeth's lover. Roger was much younger than Elspeth but several years older than the twins and he had been with Elspeth for several years, although they lived apart because Elspeth needed her "space". Roger is a tour guide for Highgate Cemetery and he is also writing his thesis on the cemetery but he's having a hard time finishing it because of the rich history the cemetery contains and of the cemetery itself. When Elspeth dies, Roger finds it hard to continue on with life but when the twins arrive it's like he's given a fresh start with Valentina.

Valentina is the "weak" twin, both physically and emotionally, and she longs to leave her sister, Julia. Julia has decided that they will spend the rest of their lives together and that neither one of them could ever have a career without the other, etc. The twins are floating about, day to day, with nothing to give them structure in their lives. Valentina is slowly starting to stand up for herself but whenever she tries to separate herself from her sister, Julia will do something to cause Valentina distress and it makes her sick, thus Valentina depends on Julia to nurse her back to health.

Meanwhile, Elspeth isn't really dead - well, she IS dead but she's a ghost and she is stuck in the apartment. Eventually she makes contact with the twins and then with Roger. At this point, there is friction because Valentina and Roger have started dating and Elspeth, while wanting Roger to move on, grows jealous. Yet, inexplicably, Valentina and Elspeth grow close and they spend much of their time "conversing" by means of the Ouija board and automatic writing. Julia and Valentina are growing further apart because Valentina spends much of her time with Roger or Elspeth and so Julia grows close with the neighbor upstairs, a man named Martin who also happens to be OCD and unable to leave his flat.

Ultimately, Julia tries to seduce Martin but he refuses because he is married, even if his wife did leave him and move to Amsterdam because he's sick & refuses treatment. Valentina and Elspeth hatch a plot to kill Valentina and have Elspeth harvest her spirit and keep it safe while the family has her funeral. Valentina feels that "faking" her death is the only way to separate herself from her twin. And of course, they need Roger's help to pull this off. Roger is horrified by the suggestion but being the weak-willed human that he is, goes along with it. After the funeral, Roger steals Valentina's body from the cemetery and brings it back so that Elspeth can put Valentina's spirit back in her body and what do you think happens????

Yep. Elspeth takes the body so now Valentina is stuck in the flat with her sister forever. Instead of exploiting this little plot twist, Niffenegger gives Valentina a way out of the apartment by simply entering her sister's mouth and letting her carry her out of the building. Did I mention that Elspeth had been trapped in the apartment for over a year and never figured that one out? Meanwhile, Elspeth convinces Roger to move off into the country and ends up preggers. Roger is so horrified by what he did that he goes into a kind of catatonic state (but not catatonic enough to not shag Elspeth) and when the baby is born, he finally wakes up and finishes his thesis. The book ends with Elspeth taking the baby for a walk and returning home to find Roger's desk had been straightened up. She calls his name but there is no answer because he is not in the house, nor does he return that night. Days pass and she realizes that he would not return at all.

That's it. The end. WTF? I really feel cheated by the ending. Niffenegger could have gone so many directions with what she had built and she lets the story collapse in upon itself.

Bleh.

My Body Is A Cage

2010-09-06T14:11:00.000-04:00

Feeling weirdly empty & dissatisfied...been feeling this way for a while. I always get like this around this time of year, though. Been thinking about making some changes but I think they'll just take me from the pan to the fire, as they say...nothing for anyone else to worry about. Trying to fill my day with some sort of meaning and it just seems false, somehow. It's my own fault...no one else can fix it but me...just not sure how...

This is my absolute, favorite time of the year. I love the cooler weather, the smell, the way the blue, blue sky seems to sharpen the oranges & reds & yellows of the trees. I love pumpkins and hayrides and bon fires and caramel apple cider. I love listening to the black birds call out to one another and watch them rush towards the sky when startled. The grass is starting to go dormant and it crackles when you walk on it. Some of the leaves have started to fall from the trees because it's been so dry the last month and it adds to the crunching sounds when you walk.

But, for some reason, this time of year also seems to hollow me out, make me feel empty. It makes me feel like I'm not in the right place...that I should be somewhere else. It's like I want to absorb it all into myself but it seems to fade as quickly as I take it in.

I can't think of anything overly significant that could have happened to me at this time of the year...nothing traumatic or life changing has ever happened to me in the fall to trigger this sort of conflicting emotions...I was married in October - which in and of itself, is life changing and very significant, but I've always felt like this during the fall...long before I was married.

Not really sure how to break out of a cycle when I can't say how it started...

Happy Birthday Xander!!!

2010-08-25T10:06:00.000-04:00

Xander is 6 years old today! So far he has enjoyed his first week of Kindergarten and Zach and I are taking a treat to his class in a little bit so that he can celebrate with his class. I can't believe that six years ago today I gave birth to my first child and he was a happy and healthy little boy. Kids really do grow up way too fast.


Brand new baby

Waiting for the bus

DAY 24 — WHATEVER TICKLES YOUR FANCY

2010-08-22T07:51:00.001-04:00

I painted my living room a burnt orange color - also known as Pumpkin Bar. It took me 4 days and 4 gallons of paint. I love it!

DAY 23 — A YOUTUBE VIDEO

2010-08-21T14:14:00.003-04:00

It's an oldie but a goodie. Candy Mountain, Charlie!!!!

DAY 22 — A WEBSITE

2010-08-20T09:01:00.001-04:00

I don't frequent a lot of websites but the ones I do visit, I visit a lot. I know the meme is for A website but here are several sites that I couldn't live without.

Pathfinder SRD - This website has everything in the player handbook & the bestiary. It also has a bunch of the 3.5 modules that have been updated to the 3.75 rule set. This site comes in very handy when we are playing D&D because it's much faster to just point & click for my info, even though I have the PHB. I think the website is even more valuable for DM's because you have all the information in one place, rather than having to flip through 2 or 3 books to find it.

The Realm of Covetedness - This is Rachel's blog & it's how I get my Rachel fix when I can't visit her, which is most of the time. She needs to blog more...and maybe post some nudes.

Facebook - a good majority of my free time is spent on Facebook, when I am not taking care of my kids or playing D&D. I like being able to see what my family and acquaintances are up to & letting them know what I'm doing without having to contact them all individually. It really takes the socialization out of socializing and I'm ok with that. I can choose what I want to respond to and what I want to ignore - PERFECT! It also has a lot of stupid games that are quite easy to become addicted to, like Bejeweled Blitz and FrontierVille. Which, if you're on Facebook and you use FrontierVille, hit me up 'cause I need some neighbors.

Robot Unicorn Attack - Rachel's daughter had this link posted on her Facebook a few weeks ago and I friggin' LOVE it. Not only do you get to play a Robot Unicorn that has special rainbow sparkle powers but there is also an Erasure song playing throughout the game. That's a WIN in my book any day of the week!

Blip.fm - This is a cool site that lets you create your own "radio station" and you can share what you are listening to via Facebook & Twitter updates. You can also subscribe to other "DJs" and it's a great way to discover new music. This is my DJ page.

City Of The Spider Queen - Game #1

2010-08-19T22:35:00.002-04:00

Lulabelle has been unable to visit Candlekeep for some time now. While I find the peace & quite of the tower enjoyable and most conducive to pursuing my studies, I find that I have missed her stories. I was just thinking about Lulabelle & her companion, Abraxus, this evening when I received this note. Most likely, it is a hoax perpetrated by one of my colleagues here at the tower. However, in the instance that Lulabelle really did send this note, I have included it in my manuscript and I will confirm the story when she next visits me. I have made no changes to the original letter & my comments are in italics.

Deer Mizter Wizurd...is that yur name? I wunder whut yur name really is.... (My name is Garold Lightbody). I'm sory that I havnt saw you in a while. I have been buzy 'venturing with Abraxsus. We got a house in Daggerfalls and I planted alot of pirty flowers that come up in whatever color that I wnat the to be. I have a lot of pink flowers because pink is my favorite color but I put some blue ones and green ones and white ones in there 'coz I think Abraxus would like thiem that color. I want to paint the house to match my flowers but Abaxus said no cause we have to go save a dragon from some virsions. (I think that Lulabelle means that they have to same the virgins from being eaten by the dragon).

Andy (Randal Morn) asked us to go find the other dragon cause it's eating the townspeole (towns people) and he sent his distant cosin with us, although he was in the same room as his cosin so he cna't be that distant....his name is Sanvonam...no wait...it's Vasnoman....or maybe it was Navosam...anyway you prolly already know him coz he prolly owes you moeny too. (I can't say that I know this...err...distant cousin of Randal Morn). I think Andy (Randal Morn) sent him with us coz he wanted him to be et by the dragon so he must be a virsion, although there was this lady who siad that Nomenclature (Navosam?) was the daddy of her behbeh and the priest cast a spell on him but he wasn't the daddy and the preist told her to find someone who had money to be the baby's dad.

Oh! and thers this place called the Kaotic Tower (Chaotic Tower?) that esploeds all the time and then it fixes itself and it goes from fire to ice to lighting and it doesw it all day long...like clock wurk...Vasdeferenz (Navosam?) said that he'd been in the tower before while is esploded but Abraxus won't let me go in it. He's no fun sometimez....although he did ask me to scout a head when we went to the dragon's cave. I didnt' see just heads, though. There were lots of guys in black robes with white skullz & an elf lady was chained up and a white dragon and a skeleton man! and I did real good and counted them all and went back & told Abraxus about it.

The skeleton man...Abraxus called him a Lick (Lich?)...that remind me...Abraxus told me that the other dragon was going to freeze me & lick me like a fiary flavored possicle...but it never did...anyway the Lick was trying to get the other dragon to drink a potion to live forever (possibly a group from the Cult of the Dragon?) but the darogn was ignorming him and it looked like it was hurt real bad cause it's wing was broken and it looked like someone was trying to eat it's face off. Or her face off. Her name was...Ixnod...and she was a white dragon. She threw the elf lady down in a big whole but abraxus saved her and then I made friends with the dragon and she ate the Lick but I don't think he tasted like a fairy flavored possicle.

I talked to Ixnod and she was gonna help us get Big Jerk Face....that's Drunkandrows (Dracandros?) cause it's his fault that she was hurt cause BIG JERK FACE was controlling another dragon and the other dragon hurt ixnod and cursed her and she couldn't heal. But then Abraxus started talking smack talk to Ixnod and made her made and she killed herself. I'm not sure why.

Oh...and where was Nambola (Navosam?) this hole time? Just strolling around the cave like a big dummy! I had to make him betr but I couldn['t wish for him to stop selling people because the elf lady said it's not right to change peo[ple ...I'm not sure what she meant because Samaowhen (Navosam?) could really use an attitude adjustment! Or a good personal financial adviser.

So then we went back & told Andy that the dragon was dead and he told us taht somebody had seen dark elves coming out of some crypts and he told us to go talk to his contact and her name was Ivy and she was a drow but she wasn't the one that was coming out of the crypts and she liekd cats and she liked Abraxus and she was digging in the dirt without any clothes on cause she liked to feel the sun on her skin and she asked us what we know about drow and I don't know much but they like spiders and they are icky but sometimes cuddly.

Ok. I'm tired now.

Bye.

DAY 21 — A RECIPE

2010-08-19T08:07:00.000-04:00

I've never actually made this but Rob was talking about making it so I thought I'd look up the recipe. I think I'm going to make it for the MOMS Club Fall Party in October. It looks so DISGUSTING!!!

KITTY LITTER CAKE

INGREDIENTS:

1 (18.25 ounce) package German chocolate cake mix
1 (18.25 ounce) package white cake mix
2 (3.5 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
1 (12 ounce) package vanilla sandwich cookies
3 drops green food coloring
1 (12 ounce) package tootsie rolls

DIRECTIONS:

Prepare cake mixes and bake according to package directions (any size pan).
Prepare pudding according to package directions and chill until ready to assemble.
Crumble sandwich cookies in small batches in a food processor, scraping often. Set aside all but 1/4 cup. To the 1/4 cup add a few drops of green food coloring and mix.
When cakes are cooled to room temperature, crumble them into a large bowl. Toss with 1/2 of the remaining cookie crumbs, and the chilled pudding. You probably won't need all of the pudding, you want the cake to be just moist, not soggy.
Line kitty litter box with the kitty litter liner. Put cake mixture into box.
Put half of the unwrapped tootsie rolls in a microwave safe dish and heat until softened. Shape the ends so that they are no longer blunt, and curve the tootsie rolls slightly. Bury tootsie rolls randomly in the cake and sprinkle with half of the remaining cookie crumbs. Sprinkle a small amount of the green colored cookie crumbs lightly over the top.
Heat 3 or 4 of the tootsie rolls in the microwave until almost melted. Scrape them on top of the cake and sprinkle lightly with some of the green cookie crumbs. Heat the remaining tootsie rolls until pliable and shape as before. Spread all but one randomly over top of cake mixture. Sprinkle with any remaining cookie crumbs. Hang the remaining tootsie roll over side of litter box and sprinkle with a few green cookie crumbs. Serve with the pooper scooper for a gross Halloween dessert.

DAY 20 — A HOBBY OF YOURS

2010-08-18T08:35:00.000-04:00

This one is easy! Of course, my all time favorite hobby is (drum roll please!) D&D!!! D&D, also known as Dungeons & Dragons (or Dorks & Dice), is a great way for me to combine my love of fantasy with my great imagination without the hassle of actually having to write a story. It's also a fun time that I get to spend with my friends, being silly - or sometimes serious, but mostly silly in my case.

There are a lot of misconceptions about D&D and a lot of stereotypes that don't apply to our group. For instance, we don't really believe that we're Elf Knights Crusading for the One True King and Slaying Demons In The Name Of The Righteous Path. We are not a LARP (Live Action Role Playing) group and we don't dress up or run around waving swords at one another. Also, we are not devil worshipers or members of a satanic cult. Well, our characters might be but I, Katie, am not a satanist in real life. And while any mundane who sat in on one of our D&D sessions would immediately be overwhelmed by the sound of clattering dice & the amount of jargon we use, my group really is not that geeky.

And for those mundies who don't know what D&D is or how it's played basically we pick a class, i.e. wizard, fighter, thief, or cleric; we pick a race, i.e. elf, dwarf, gnome, or human; and we roll up our stats, i.e. strength, dexterity, wisdom, or charisma. Some groups roll up their stats differently - we either roll 4d6 and discard the lowest die, adding the 3 highest together or we roll 2d6 and add 6 to the final result. By the way, a d6 is a 6-sided die, a d20 is a die with 20 sides. Depending on what race you are, there is a table in the player's handbook that will tell you what to add to your stats - these are called modifiers. There are also tables that tell you what bonuses to add to your saves, attack & damage rolls, & how many skill points per level you get based on what class you are.

There are several versions of D&D, such as the Pathfinder 3.75 rule set & 4.0. My group uses the Pathfinder rules, while 4.0 is considered the "official" D&D rule set. And even though two different groups might be using the same rule set, the game will be completely different between the 2 groups because of something called house rules. Sometimes there will be a rule in the book that isn't clarified or it's just plain stupid so the DM (the Dungeon Master) will modify the rule to work for his group the way he thinks it should. And sometimes groups will make up their own rules and not even use the current versions or use a mish mash of previous editions.

The DM is responsible for telling the story and for running the NPC's (non-player characters) and sometimes the PC's (player characters) mess everything up by not going in the direction that the DM had envisioned. Some DM's are able to work with what the PC's give them and they will change the direction of their story and other DM's will get pissed off and kill everyone, also known as a TPK (total party kill). Of course, most of the time the PC's are responsible for the TPK by acting stupidly or just not rolling well.

The game is really a lot more in depth & my quick description really does it no justice but it's fun and I love it. I have been playing with the same D&D group for about 10 years now and the great thing about being in the same group for that long is that you grow comfortable with the other people. When I first started playing D&D with these guys, I was so nervous and embarrassed that I would hardly say anything! I still get kind of nervous whenever my character is put in any sort of "leadership" position because I don't want to be responsible for other PC deaths but for the most part, I'm a lot more confident in my role playing abilities.

Kindergarten Blues

2010-08-17T09:27:00.000-04:00

Xander started Kindergarten today. I took him to school so that I could take some pictures but being the crappy photographer that I am, they turned out blurry. He's in a half-day Kindergarten class and he's going in the morning. There are 27 kids in his class because no one signed up for the PM session. The school principle called all of the parents and asked us to consider sending some of our kids to the PM class at a different elementary school - which is about 20 minutes away from my house. We all told him no. The teacher was hired about 4 days before school started. I'm nervous about the quality of his education this year but the teacher said that if all 27 kids show up on the first day then the school will hire an assistant for her. That's still a lot of kids in one class.

I asked Xander if he was excited about starting Kindergarten and he said that he was. He does know one of the kids in his class because the little boy was in his Pre-K class last year. Xander was fine with me taking pictures until we got into the classroom and then he was done with it. He let me take a picture of him with his teacher after I promised that it was the last one. And contrary to what everyone said, I did not cry when I dropped him off at school because I'm actually glad that he's starting school. I think that the boys and I definitely need some structure and it's hard to provide that in the summer when we don't have any obligations.

Xander & Ms. Holbert

DAY 19 — A TALENT OF YOURS

2010-08-17T09:15:00.001-04:00

I don't know that I really have a talent for anything in particular. I like to do a lot of things but I don't know that I do any of them well because I tend to loose interest in things easily. I guess if there is one thing that I am "talented" at, it's probably my knack for saying stupid shit at the just the right time. It mostly happens when I'm playing D&D.

Here are a few examples:

Rob - I want to roll to say something hateful in Dark Speech. rolls the D20 & gets a 1 (which is an automatic failure)
Me - You just said, "Bunnies playing in the snow!"

Me - So what is it that your character does for a living?
Al - He's a practitioner of the Necromantic Arts.
Me - Is that anything like painting?

Randy - You must be vigilant! They may assault us!
Me - Why would they throw salt at us?

DAY 18 — WHATEVER TICKLES YOUR FANCY

2010-08-16T22:52:00.001-04:00

Wow. I'm actually posting this one on the correct day. I guess I will talk about my weekend & other stuff. We had a birthday party for the boys on the 14th of August - one of the hottest days of the year. My dad's new wife has a big-ass bouncy house and she brought it over for the boys and all of the other kids to play in. They also had their brand new swing set that my mom had bought them for their birthday (Aaron got it finished that morning). We also set up a little swimming pool for the kids to jump in and I think that they all had a good time.

I made the boys a cake but it fell apart when I was getting it out of the pan. I had made the cake the night before and it stuck to the bottom of the dish and ended up in pieces on the counter so I had to go to Marsh to buy a new cake. I was afraid that they would say that I have to pre-order the cake but they had one that was perfect for the boys & they even wrote "Happy Birthday Zach & Xander" on it and I only had to wait for a few minutes for them to do it.

CAKE FAIL!!!

The bakery cake

My mother-in-law offered to watch the boys that evening so that Aaron & I could go out. We went to an Italian place in Pendleton called Daddio's for dinner. I ordered the lasagna and it tasted like the Stouffer's boxed lasagna that costs $3.99 for 2 lbs. and Aaron said that his fettucini alfredo was overcooked but that the chicken in it was good. Then we drove to Anderson and bought a matress for the top bunk of Xander's bed (since the nephews were spending the night we thought it might be useful to finally put a matress up there) and then we went to the mall where I found some Lillith Saintcrow books for $1 a piece. We also went to The Dollar Tree, where I ooohed & aaahhhhed over all of the Halloween decorations that they have out & to The Danger Room, Anderson's only game store, where I drooled all over the D&D books & the Magic cards.

We also drove around Anderson to try to find a place that would do piercings. I was going to get the cartiledge of my right ear repierced at the mall but apparently the little piercing booths haven't been piercing cartiledge with a gun for several years now and you have to go to a tattoo/piercing shop to do it. So then I decided to get my nose repierced but we couldn't find a place to do it. The one shop that I walked into only did tattoos but my neighbor knows of a shop that does it for $20 so I'm going there tomorrow to get my nose redone.

We had to go to Troy, Ohio on Sunday for our nephews' birthday party and it was at some place called Jumpy's. The kids had a great time but we were only there for 2 hours and the girls that were running the place were very prompt about kicking us out right at 1:30 PM. We decided to stop at K-Mart on the way to my mother-in[-law's to see if they had any Ohio St. jerseys for the boys & ended up doing all of their school shopping. We headed to my mother-in-law's for a few hours and had dinner with her and then we came home. I begged them to have the nephew's birthday party on a seperate weekend next year because this was just too much for one weekend.

It was a good thing that we did their school shopping on Sunday because I ended up babysitting for about an hour today. I also cleaned the walls in the living room & took down all of the pictures and tapped off the edges so that I can start to paint. I finally settled on Pumpkin Bar and it's a dark orangish-reddish color. It's going to be very pretty by the time I get it all done and I can't wait to finish painting the living room. It'll be like having fall in my living room all year round.

Xander starts Kindergarten tomorrow so we took him out for ice cream tonight and got his clothes ready for school in the morning. He says that he's very excited to start school but we'll see what he says when I get him up at 7 AM.

Speaking of getting up early, I better go to bed so that I'm not too cranky, either.

DAY 16/17 - SONG THAT MAKES YOU CRY/AN ART PIECE

2010-08-14T22:11:00.000-04:00

A SONG THAT MAKES YOU CRY (OR NEARLY) - There really aren't any songs that I can think of that make me cry. But I'll never forget the conversation that my friend Mandy had with her mom and then she told me about it years ago.

Mandy's Mom - "Do you know what song makes me cry?"
Mandy - "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy by Rod Stewart?"

AN ART PIECE (PAINTING, DRAWING, SCULPTURE, ETC.) - Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi

I first saw this painting in one of the many art history classes that I had to take at The Herron School of Art. I've always been a big fan of Caravaggio and when I learned about this painting that not only used Caravaggio's style but improved upon the original, I had to learn more about the artist who did it. It is theorized that Artemisia Gentileschi painted the scene around the same time that she was raped by Agostino Tassi, the man who was supposed to oversee her career. It was very unusual at that time for a woman to be allowed to pursue a career in painting or to paint scenes of such graphic violence.

I can just imagine the shame and anger that Artemisia felt as she painted Judith Slaying Holofernes, a scene depicted straight from the bible. Artemisia's own father sent her to study in Tassi's studio and she was betrayed by the man who was supposed to be mentoring her. Tassi not only stole her virginity but he also coerced her into continuing the sexual relationship with promises that he would eventually marry her and make her an "honest" woman.

Artemisia was forced to undergo a vaginal examination and was also tortured and accused of being promiscuous when she first met Tassi. This sort of scrutiny was very damaging to a woman's reputation when all she had was her virginity and/or her dowry. Tassi was eventually found guilty of raping Gentileschi and he was exiled from Rome but he was allowed back 4 months later.

DAY 13, 14, & 15 - FICTION/NON-FICTION/FANFIC

2010-08-12T21:36:00.000-04:00

Been busy so I feel behind on these posts. Still busy so I'm re-posting some oldies but goodies although the fanfic review is new.

FICTION - Lucifer's Scar; A Love Story by Rachel Turner is about God & Lucifer and the relationship between the two of them but not in the conventional sense. God creates Lucifer because he is lonely and the two of them carry out carnal relations in the midst of a beautiful realm that Lucifer created to please his lover. God actually gives Lucifer the power of creation and it is Lucifer, not God, who creates the Earth & all things within it, including evolution.

God created Lucifer to be the perfect companion, so Lucifer knows everything that is in God's mind and he picks up on the guilt and shame that God carries in his heart. Lucifer begins to question his purpose and he desires to feel that he is unique, not some whim of God to be cast aside when something else comes along. Lucifer learns that he is not God's first attempt at companionship, but the sixth creation; the first five resulting in failure. Lucifer resents his role as a "play thing" and through the meddling of Fate & Chaos itself, he begins to revolt against God.

The angels Peter, Silas, & Simon conspire to expose Lucifer's relationship with God and in so doing, seal their own doom; unknowing that they are the witless tools of Chaos. Lucifer, feeling he has been used by God, condemns him and tells God that he hates him. God tells the Fates that he would forsake everything to be with Lucifer but Lucifer rejects him and vows to make a realm far away from God, where he would raise an army against heaven.

The culmination of Rachel's book is the war against heaven, in which Chaos is revealed as the BIG BAD. Chaos comes from nothing and returns to nothing in the end. Lucifer comes to realize that the ultimate idea of perfection is simply accepting the imperfection in others and that one's shame must be embraced in order to transcend above it. He is given a second chance and is reborn as Jesus, retaining all knowledge of his previous life. He must now work to undo all that was done in his name as Lucifer.

Rachel re-imagines the story of Christianity and presents to the reader her interpretation of creation and evolution, God and Lucifer, Adam and Eve, and the war in heaven. She creates beautiful imagery and visceral reactions to the ongoing events of her story. Rachel tells her side without it seeming blasphemous but as another version of the original story. I highly recommend this book but be warned, it's not for those who are faint of heart or the religious zealots.

NON-FICTION - Broken Music: A Memoir by Sting - I've been wanting to read this book for a while now because I am a big fan of The Police and I've been in love with Sting since I was old enough to listen to his music. I really didn't know what to expect from this book because I don't read biographies often. But I'm really glad that I read it because it was fascinating to read about how Sting grew up and what led to his music career.

One thing that I forget about him is that he was born in 1951 and that he's the same age as my dad. Sting grew up listening to Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles and he got his start playing bass in a local group that played big band & jazz. Sting's command of prose is very descriptive and I can picture the town of Wallsend, England, where he was born & raised as dark and romantic; with dreary skies and hulking ships blocking out the sun, & the ruined shells of buildings blasted during WW2 still left standing. I can taste his frustration and excitement at almost making it several times and the struggle that he endures to follow his dreams.

Sting doesn't mention The Police until almost the end of the book, maybe seeing it as the culmination of all that he experienced when he was younger. A little tidbit that I found very interesting was that Stuart Copeland, the drummer and founder of the Police, is the son of Miles Axe Copeland, Jr., one of the founders of the CIA. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves the music of Sting and/or The Police.

FANFIC - I'm not sure if Supernatural: Heart of The Dragon qualifies as a fanfic but I'm not a big fan of fanfic and it's the only thing that I've read that might come close. I'm also not a big fan of the TV show Supernatural and the only reason I read the book in the first place was because I was supposed to review it for another blog (although that never happened & that's a whole 'nother story).

The book is set into three parts and follows the story of Sam & Dean, their grandparents, & their parents as they all hunt the same killer but in different time periods. The book is supposed to take place during certain episodes of the show but I honestly could not tell you which episodes that would be because I didn't really care. The killer was actually the spirit of a Samurai who had been tricked into servitude by a demon and it was being controlled by a man who was half-Chinese and also very arrogant and bitter about a lot of shit. The Samurai spirit went around killing the people that the half-Chinese dude got mad at.

Both the parents & grandparents of Sam & Dean were able to banish the Samurai spirit for 25 years at a time but they were never able to actually defeat the spirit. It wasn't until Sam & Dean came along that the spirit was finally returned to his final rest and the demon was destroyed. Or was the demon destroyed? I don't remember.

The book was boring but I'm sure that it would be enjoyable to a fan of the show.

DAY 12 — WHATEVER TICKLES YOUR FANCY

2010-08-10T15:25:00.000-04:00

Hmmm...this is hard because nothing is really tickling my fancy right now. I spent all morning at the Madison County Health Dept. waiting for the boys to get their last vaccination for school. We got there at 9 AM (right when they open) & didn't leave until noon. It's my fault because I knew back in April that they needed the shots but I waited until the last week before school started to get it done. I don't know why I thought I could just breeze in there and back on out. I'm a dumbass.

Both boys did really well while we waited & when they had to get their shots. Xander didn't even cry when he got his, just flinched and said "ow". Zach did cry but he didn't struggle or try to fight me while I held his arm. I told them both last night that we were going to do this today and when they asked if it would hurt, I told them that it would, a little, but that it would stop after they got their shot. I think they handled it a lot better than if I had sprung it on them as we pulled up to the place.

It cracks me up that everyone thinks that they are twins or that Zach is the older one because he's a good 4 inches taller than Xander.

Nothing else to talk about, other than it's too damn hot to leave the house & the boys got their new swing set on Sunday and it's still not put together (it's about 45% done). I'm hoping that Aaron gets it done before their birthday party on Saturday. Otherwise, I'll have my fat ass out in that 100 + degree weather with a screwdriver (not the drink) & a bad temper.

I did play D&D on Sunday with the guys and it was fun but I was super freaking tired because I was out all night on Saturday. My dad watched the boys so that Aaron & I could go to a friend's birthday party. It was fun but I drank a lot & I was really tired so even though we had Rock Band 2, I was ready to leave by 11. As it was, we didn't get home until 1:30 AM but it was nice to sleep in on Sunday.

That is all.

DAY 11 — A PHOTO OF YOU TAKEN RECENTLY

2010-08-09T16:52:00.001-04:00

DAY10 — A PHOTO OF YOU TAKEN OVER TEN YEARS AGO

2010-08-08T12:23:00.000-04:00

DAY 09 — A PHOTO YOU TOOK

2010-08-07T12:21:00.000-04:00

At the Pool of Radiance