DCM: Arwen, Parts 5-8

Venturing into the Library(and a bag of beans)

Characters:
Arwen, my fighter/mage
Galen, Allen's paladin
Tak, previously Matthew's thief now henchman of Arwen
Clifton, D.M.

After a while, Galen and Arwen decide to venture into the next level of the ruins. Two weeks had passed, Galen had gotten a two-handed +5 Holy Avenger, and I had recieved information about a book of brewing a restorative potion. Fortunately, the book was rumored to be just where we were headed. We traveled there and found a vast library. While looking around at the books I got attacked by several golems standing on the tops of the bookshelves. We finally destroyed them (after me being knocked out once), and rested for several days. After we felt better we sorted through the books we finally left. I brought a few with me and Galen brought some with him. I stuck the books at home and rented a wagon. I took the wagon there and got 160 more books for myself. I went back to find Galen had gone off and killed me a hill giant for the potion of restorative brewing (to make it I will need a unicorn's horn, trolls blood, an eye of a giant crocodile, and a giants bones). I was delighted and got the bones I required. We were on our way to go adventuring on the rest of that level(with Tak he had just gotten out of jail) (there had been a door leading out of the library), and all of a sudden, there were a band of thieves from the guild after Tak. We beat the crap out of them and got a bunch of stuff. Incuding a bag of beans. We threw a bunch of them and all sorts of magical things happened. I got a dollhouse, too. In this dollhouse I could enter it even though it was really small. I went in and was greeted by pne of the invisible servants who serve the master of the dollhouse. I went ahead and took my stuff home and spent a few weeks remaking my spellbook(it had been destroyed by the effects of a bean).

Quests for the Restorative Potion

Characters:
Arwen, my frickin' awesome mage/fighter chick
Galen, Allen's paladin
Hakkan, Adam's cleric
Clifton, D.M.

Okay, I went to consult a sage(It took 12,000 gp!!!) to find out where I could find a unicorn's horn for that had been on the list of things needed to make the brew. He told me that there was a renegade warlord named Ock to the south who had one. We ventured south to find him. After some time, we found some tracks of an extremely large foot. We followed the tracks untill we finally saw it in the distance. It appeared to be a large humanoid on top of a metal encased, tusked beast. I was about to fireball it when he distracted me by shooting a handgunn(no misspelling) at the ground next to me. Then he ran. We finally caught up to him after about 3 days. We battled him and eventually killed him. Apparently, the beast is Galen's "mount", and I got the unicorn's horn.

Gotta get Galen back!

Characters:
Arwen, miss spell-sword the awesome
Galen, Allen's paladin
Hakkan, Adam's cleric
Clifton, D.M.

After Galen dropped us off at the town, he went off to pollish his armor. After several days we realized he had been gone a bit too long. We( Hakkan, Tak, and I )ventured out following the tracks and found bandits had stolen some of Galen's stuff. We slew them and took the stuff into the swamp the tracks led to. We encountered some lizard men who said that he was staying in their villiage( the witch doctor of this town had given Galen a map to his holy avenger in exchange for an eye ). So we went there to see him and return his belongings. When we got to him he was happy to get his stuff back, but he wanted to slay this monster that had been killing lizard men from the villiage. So we went and got to the cave. When we arrived we found a lake that we had to cross first. Once across we climbed the cliff walls. After we got over them, we went throught the caves and came upon another lake. there were step-looking things in the water, and I threw a rock at one. It sank. Then the giant crocodile attacked. We fought it off and I took its two eyeballs( one for the potion, another for a backup ). We went across the body to get to the other side and came upon a vast cave with a large lizard-thing with wings( dragon ) was perched upon a mass of treasure. We attacked it, and it flew up and then attacked us. Suddenly, Tak shot the lizard through the eye into the brain with the hangunn( 2 or 3 natural 20's in a row! ) and killed it. We grabbed some treasure and went back to the villiage, but they said they wanted us gone so we left without a word of what we had done. We got back home and went to Pete's to see if he had gotten troll's blood by now. He, being Pete, had, so I bought some and mixed the potion for stat restoration. After a week I had my stats back and was better than ever. Galen pulled out a Deck of many things. Tak, Galen, and I each drew some and I got some XP, Galen got a 4th level fighter henchman, and Tak got 18 Charisma, a keep, and lots of XP. It's easy to say Tak sucked the luck out of the rest of us for that night, and he's only an NPC! After that, Hakkan bade Galen and me goodbye.

Rusty and the Skull of Chargg

Characters:
Arwen, my elven mage chicky
Galen, Allen's paladin
Rusty Senisas, Adam's one-eyed half-elven fighter/cleric(also known as Ol' Rusty Eye)
Don't Forget This, Kyle's human fighter
Clifton, D.M.

We started this adventure meeting up with Rusty and DONT FORGET THIS who came to visit our home because it is all of the adventurer's guild our town has. We decided that the more the merrier so brought them with us to the library and we unbarred the big double doors and out jumped a Greater Yugoloth. So we were getting whooped till Rusty cast moment on himself and shot an row right square in the middle of its head, killing it. Beyond it was a room with a pedestal with a skull on it and stairs beyond it. The skull was human in appearance and had two horns coming out the top. I later identified it to find it was an anti-demon magical item, that when willed to do so, will cast the spell fireball 3 times a day. The fireball ignored all imunities of fire! Naturally, since I was the best suited to it, being a mage and all, I got it.

Dice Chucking Memories: Arwen, parts 2 and 3

Further adventures of Arwen

Adventure of the Abandoned Mine

Characters:

Arwen, my mage/fighter
Galen, Allens paladin
Clifton, D.M.

Okay between these two adventures, Arwen bought an old warehouse and made it into a house with her hoards of money. Well, We went to this shop called Crazy Pete's(I know it's a big rip off of wierd pete) and he gave us a map to this mine and said that there were tales of demons originating from this place. Well, we traveled there and went from room to room, beating up all sorts of undead and stuff. We ended up in this room where this guy was holding a big double headed hand axe and attacked him. He knocked Arwen out, but Galen finished him off. When Arwen came to Galen had burned the body and the weapon(darn him) so I went and looked in the next room to see if there was any good loot. Unfortunately, there was only a few gp and a bunch of cp. There was this other room we found where there was a lake, but in the middle was an island with a shaft in it. On the way back, me and Galen had both just leveled up. So, we bugged Clifton into generating a random encounter up on Core Rules. We encoutnered a guild of thieves. Yup, that's right, kiddies. 108 1st level thieves(all named ferris!) and one 6th level thief lord(who we couldn't pick out to get his Red Dragon Slayer Short Sword +2, ARGH!!). Anyway, hours later, after one firebal and five burning hands, Arwen, Galen, and Arwen's, war dog, Lunger, emerged from the battle while 41 thieves ran away screaming. HAR HAR!

Into the Antechamber of the Demon Gate

Characters:

Arwen, my mage/fighter
Galen, Allen's paladin
Clifton, D.M.

We went back to town and healed up. I went to Crazy Pete's and bought me 2 or 3 swords. We went back and went down the shaft. We reached the bottom of the rope we used and we were above a crapload of dead bodies. We swung off onto the ground around the pit-o-bodies and in each of the four corners was a hole in a different shape for each corner. There were four exits, each one on its own wall. As we went in one the door snapped shut behind us. We pulled a lever and entered a room with a pedestal across a big pit. On the pedestal(don't ask me how I got over there, I don't remember) was a piece of black onyx that was in the shape of one of the holes. Each hall was like that only each room was different(one with lots-o-bugs, one with a bridge, and one with sloped ground. All with different onyxes). We rested up, then put all the little thingies in the wholes where they belonged and the bodies in the center became a big monster and we kicked its butt, but lost some points of stats (DARN CLIFTON!!!!). Then went back to town.

A couple more posts for Arwen before we move on to Spike's campaign starring Adam's Mithril Adamantite and the first cleric of Bitemeaten.

Dice Chucking Memories...

So I recently hooked up my desktop computer (ca. 2002), since Allison's laptop died. Today I found the folder containing all my old webpage stuff. I always particularly enjoyed the details about Dungeons and Dragons (2nd edition at that point) games. The following is the character summary and the first adventure of that team: Arwen (my silly rip-off), Galen of the Plains (or is it the Giantslayer? Either way, it was Allen's paladin with stupid 2nd ed. charisma requirements), and Tak (Matty's only attempt at playing d&d with me, pretty much). Warning: these are pasted from a 7th or 8th grader's webpage, so ignore childish error, please.

Adventures of Arwen
Name:Arwen
Race:Elf
Sex:Female
Class:Mage/Fighter
Allignment:Neutral Good
Age:118
Height:4'11"
Weight:98 lbs.
Notable magic items:Scroll of lightning bolt(3 charges), Hand axe +2, Fire Slinger(long sword +2, shoots fire for 1D8 damage. 3 times a day), Periapt of wound closure, Scale mail +3, manual of pussiant skill at arms, manual of the cullinary art of preparing fine enchanted finger foods, manual of restorative brewing, spellbook of first level spells, spellbook of conuration/summoning spells, log of accurate transcription, spellbook of all my spells, potion of stone giant control, Skull of Chargg

Adventure of the Goblin Raiders

Characters:

Arwen, my mage/fighter.
Galen of the Plains, Allen's paladin who kept giving our cash away.
Tak, Matthew's thief.
Clifton, D.M.

So we were hanging out in a tavern or something and this kid came in. He had been part of a carravan, but it had been attacked by a party of goblin raiders. They got beat up, and all that was left was him. So we thought hey, why don't we go beat up some of those goblins and take their cash? We went after them and went to their last known position. We tracked them down until we found a cave. We went thru and every party of goblins had a leader and he always weilded a magical weapon. No one in the party even noticed so I got 'em all! A mace+1, a dagger+1, a spear+1, a mace+1, and a hand axe+1. The goblin king was wearing a crown and was protected by some gnolls. So we beat the crap out of them and on the throne was a secret switch which, when pulled would open a secret door leading to a big 'ole treasure trove. I went in first so when i got in there I dove in and stuffed 1000 gp in my backpack, then the others came in and we divided the rest evenly(he he he).

Toys!

Thanks to the arrival of the Christmas season in the retail universe, I've been running into more and more neat toys. While I'm not a consumer of random toys, I do collect the ones from Marvel comics. Even this category is so broad that I limit it to only Superhero Squad, Marvel Universe, and Mighty Muggs--and within those, only X-Men related figures. So what new X-Figs do we have today? The new line of Marvel Universe figures (H.A.M.M.E.R. Wave 1/MU Wave 6) collects Vision, (another) Spider Man, (another) Wolverine (mask-less in Jim Lee uniform), Jean Grey (Jim Lee uniform), Sunfire (Giant-Size uniform), and Warpath (X-Force uniform). I first saw them at Wal-Mart, but this news site has them for your viewing pleasure. I really want the Sunfire and Warpath figures, but we're saving up for our trip to Germany in December. There's the whole why factor that keeps me rethinking buying toys, but they sure are nice to look at. An $8 price tag makes buying them worse than groceries. Perhaps I'll just stick to superhero squad in the future, but who knows?

Speaking of such, I recently got the 2-pack with (Jim Lee) Bishop and (Jim Lee mask-less) Wolverine.



I can justify them more because the figures are cheaper and I could actually foresee letting a kid play with them. It's interesting that they're making so many figures with the Jim Lee (late 1980s, early 1990s) costumes. Perhaps Marvel and Hasbro are hoping to corner people like me who latched onto the X-Men during that time, but who knows? If I had a podcast about this kind of thing, I'd try to get a representative on there to interview about their decisions.

Either way, I know one thing for certain. The chances of me getting more Jubilee toys will be drastically increased when she comes back to the X-Men in Nation X #2 (Jan. 2010)!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I loved her short-lived miniseries, and her time in the New Warriors demonstrated her leadership abilities. Hopefully she'll join the lineup of one of the main X titles, but I think the best fit for her would be in X-Men Legacy. If the Carey plans to follow Rogue helping mutants, Jubes would totally work well with her experience both as a leader and an ex-mutant support volunteer (Generation M #2).

Oh and one more thing about toys and such, I heard that Jan. 2010 will mark the arrival of Lego Harry Potter (years 1-4) to the Lego video game series, which I have enjoyed greatly.

need to leave?

Perhaps I'm channeling my intense lack of interest in my research seminar on American road culture, but I've recently been pondering. This post is just sort of a mental adventure, and it sort of serves as the opposite of Elizabeth's post. Does the imminent desire to pack up and go adventuring suggest some form of idolatry? What I have isn't good enough, so I should give up everything to go find something better. I can appreciate the need to appreciate the world around me, but much of travel literature uses such romantic imagery that it vaguely (or sometimes, outright) suggests worship. Many motorists journey for spiritual goals, but perhaps rejecting our surroundings for personal growth is just another way to retard its development.

Then again, perhaps I just focus on personal contentment as the first step to spiritual development. Then again, part of development and growth is change, which often requires a catalyst. Maybe the act of journeying on the highway readies one for inner growth, and I'm just trying to throw the pejorative label of idolatry on travel to add further negativity to a class I dislike. Or possibly there's bits of truth within the idea.

School Shmool

Every time I feel somewhat content in my educational situation, something messes up. Let me explain a bit..

After two and a half years of coursework, I began work on my thesis. Unfortunately, after passing comprehensive exams and drafting three chapters, the project met with unexpected problems with one of my advisers. It turned out that the best option would be to switch to a new departmental "work around" and attempt to graduate through the non-thesis option. In this new option, I would have to take two research seminars--one American history, one European--and additional coursework to be determined by the graduate director. This fall I was scheduled to take the American research seminar and a class on the history of American religion that was handpicked by the director. Unfortunately the latter class failed to make, so I've now shifted back to an unsure position. The director emailed me directly to inform me that it was canceled and that there was no way I could take the class independently, but he failed to mention what alternate course I should take. I emailed him asking him but have yet to hear anything back. Perhaps I'm due for a campus visit.

Communication Malfunctions (ranting about the present and the past)

So recently, I've had to deal with a few annoyances. The root of the issues seems to be failures in communication.

My apartment was recently visited by a water leak and some damage to the master bath. Upon discovery, I went to report it to the main office their next business day. They assured me that people would come that day to see it. They did, and they said more people would come that day. A week later the people showed up to tear out the bathroom cabinet and the drywall in order to fix the leak and repair the damage. They did not inform us in advance when they would be coming, so there was tons of our toiletries and personal items that I had to remove in front of them (heck one guy started bringing hand-fulls of hair-ties and other items to the unloading zone). If you've been in our closet/bathroom you'd know there is barely standing room for three people, let alone three dudes standing around with me walking through them trying to carry stuff out of there. If they had called ten minutes before they got there, the entire experience would have been quicker and more comfortable for everyone involved. My previous apartment staff was much more responsible and organized. They called in advance, knocked, left receipts once done, and were amiable. My current landlords could learn something from them.

Once they completed their work with the leak and tearing out the damaged cabinets, they left and said people would come later. Two or three hours later, a man and a woman walk into the apartment without knocking. They panicked, as they claimed to have been told the apartment was empty--yet another example of poor communication. They install a new cabinet, one without drawers (that's not really so bad, but it's very inconvenient that we were not consulted on this decision or at least informed). At the end of the day, they said someone would be by the next day to finish the job.

That was two weeks ago. After they finished the job, they abandoned multiple strips of drywall and cabinet doors in my closet. I consulted the office that day, where I was told that again they would be come finish that day or the next. I set those items outside my door. They stood there up to and after the complex manager and her water damage consultant came through a week later. (Oh by the way I almost forgot to mention the leak that began when they re-installed our bathroom sink, they fixed it the day I found it, but ignored the stuff outside and the rest of the repairs.) After a week and a half I just lugged the left over materials to the trash compactor. Two and a half weeks later, I have no idea when they'll be back to work on the bathroom again. We went ahead and moved stuff back in, but the floor still looks ragged.

At least some of that ranting could have been avoided by improved communication. If the apartment staff could give better estimates, update me on changes, and call in advance, I'd be much more content. And I'd venture to say that their overall service to their residents would be improved.

It sort of reminds me of another communication failure. When I was in Junior High, I was friends with two older guys who were my brother's age. As we grew better friends, we started talking about life, the universe, and everything. Two of us ended our friendship with the other because we were weirded out by some of those conversations with him. What went wrong? I mean, sure, people grow apart, but dropping a close friendship over a few conversations without any discussion is rude and cruel. A year or so later, I apologized to the other guy and he expressed his disappointment with our failure to let him know that we had been bothered by him in any way. He could have been like any other friend who avoids disturbing friends by avoiding certain topics. We all try to focus on the things that bring friends together. Divisions can be overcome by changing what one discusses or how one behaves, but only with communicating issues. To this day, the two remain non-friends. In fact, it has developed into overall dislike and enmity. I think they could be friends and have a good time, if only they could make up. This, however, would require the wrong party to apologize. Sadly, that is unlikely. Time heals all wounds--except of course the wounds that fester and develop into permanent damage. People should just be clear and honest to begin with.

Emails of a Professional Sort

Dr. [thesis advisor],

Thank you so much for your help and patience over the last few years. You have been a great help in guiding me towards certain research topics, resources, and people. Recently, though, I have decided to fully pursue the new non-thesis option as its demands meet my needs the best. I’ll be continuing coursework to fulfill the new program requirements, and will be setting aside the work I have done on my thesis for the time being. Thanks for letting me borrow the two books on popular religion, and I’ll be getting them back to you in the next couple of weeks. Again I’m sorry for any negative feelings that may have risen from our experience. I wish you the best of luck on all your pursuits and thank you for your help getting me here.

Sincerely,

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


Dr. [second reader],

As you know, I’ve been a bit busy with life outside of school, but hopefully you aren’t offended by my lack of correspondence. Dr. [potential new reader] contacted me about my thesis, and perhaps his comments combined with the time I had spent thinking about everything BUT my thesis allowed me to sense that my work thus far has been subpar and unsatisfactory. That being said, he suggested that the earliest that I would be able to graduate with his involvement would be the fall semester of 2010. Taking into account my negative feelings toward the project and that new potential date of completion, I have decided to fully pursue the new non-thesis option. I will be enrolled in two more semesters of coursework, and Lord-willing, I will graduate in May 2010. I don’t see spending another full year or more working on the thesis to be as helpful as taking a few courses and getting my degree several months sooner.

Thank you so very much for your help and support. I know that you may view your assistance as merely your professional duties, but I feel a very personal level of friendship and thanks for your efforts. Thanks for all that you’ve done, and I’m sure that I will see you in the fall because one of the three classes I need to take is your seminar on American religion.

Sincerely your student,

random blogging notes

I've been trying to keep a little moleskine with me wherever I go, so I can jot down notes about this and that. One thing I use it to remember is random weird things I can comment about in this blog. Today's topic: the retail zombie.

Recently, I was in Target with my wife shoe-shopping. She was perusing merchandise and I was walking down the main shopping lane looking for her down the little aisles. To my surprise, not only did I pass one Target employee, but I passed three or four. They were not clumped together or even very close to each other. Each one was separate, but they all had one thing in common. They looked at the ground in front of them as they walked. They did not care enough about where they were to look around to see there surroundings, but it also seemed like a conscious effort to avoid eye contact with customers in order to avoid having to actually do something.

Now, I have lots of retail/customer service experience, and I know lots of customers are unpleasant (and some are downright awful). Their needs and desires, though, are certainly the business of employees, and to ignore random passersby by staring at the floor with neutral (or harumph-y) expressions is failing at their job. Retail involves plenty of tasks separate from customer relations, but helping the customers is the root of any job on the sales floor. You may have to stock something, or may need to go report for duty somewhere, but as a sales associate of any sort, you have a responsibility to be aware of what's going on in the store and to help whomever may need it.

I also acknowledge that everyone has bad days--heck, one might argue that retail employees have more than others. Such negativity, though, must be tamed by a willingness to do the job for which you are being paid. You don't have to bend over backwards or talk a customers ear off, but please, Mr. Retail man, do your job and give a crap.

the desparate search in a desperate time

So I've been applying to all sorts of jobs around town here. I feel like a horrible partner to my new wife, who is working hard to provide for us. She's very, very understanding, but I still feel a bit bad for my lack of income. At least the money gifts we received for our wedding will help cushion us until someone hires me. I started looking for "real" jobs (i.e. skilled work for ppl with education), but as that led nowhere, I focused on dead-end retail sales and assistant management positions. Today, my friend Kristen advised me to try banks, so I've been applying to them for the last few hours. I don't have bank experience, but I like math, can count back monies, and have maintained cash drawers at many jobs.

Only Best Buy has called me, but they want me for a seasonal (summer) job from July to August. I wouldn't mind that, but after the conversation with whomever I spoke, she told me she'd pass my application on to the next stage. The only calls for jobs that I have received previously were requesting interviews. The call from Best Buy was just a conversation asking for information on work experience, which I had already outlined in my application. Hopefully, I'll get some job soon. I'm pretty confident that I can charm my way into a job as long as I get an interview.

My apologies for the scatter-brained-ness of this post. My syntax was far too conversational and sloppy. Thanks for reading.

Wedding

So last Friday (29 May), Allison and I were married, and we then took off to an adventurous and lazy honeymoon. But let's back up a bit..

I stayed with my brother and my sister-in-law, both of whom were very gracious and kind hosts. I could have stayed at my parents' house, but I would very possibly been in a constant state of battle with my mother. She and I (though we are good now) have a long history of arguments, and pre-wedding stress would not help our relationship if we were forced to be close for long periods of time. Allen and Leah (my hosts/relatives) were very sweet to let me come and go as I needed or pleased.

Speaking of coming and going, I had a few late nights during the week leading up to the wedding. We had a bachelor party sort of hang-out thing Tuesday night, the events of which will not be disclosed on this blog. Let's just say that I had a great time, and that said time involved drinking, talking about interesting things, and fireworks. In attendance were groomsmen Matt, Jeffrey, and James (and Matt's dad who was extremely entertained by the evening's events). The next day I felt fine, and had the usual morning late that my hosts prepare each day. I also had some burn marks on a couple fingers.

Wednesday Allen, Leah, Jeffrey, and I went to pick up our tuxedos (not Leah, she was there for the pleasure of our company). We then enjoyed a delicious meal at Olive Garden (during the wait for our table, I sneaked over to BAM to read Uncanny X-Men 510... thoughts: love the fight scenes, loved that they featured the younger mutants, and am thrilled to see what happens with both [original non-Asian] Psylocke and perhaps Jean coming back from the dead. Spoilers, by the way). Back at the restaurant, I enjoyed the unlimited soup and salad with the Chicken Gnocci soup. It was delicious without making me feel like I had ordered too much food (a rarity for Olive Garden).

That day, my beautiful bride and some of her group began to arrive, and I was able to see some of them. Later that night, as I began to prepare for bed, Matt called me to tell me that he and Jeffrey were coming to pick me up for more adventuring. We did some fun things, which, again, I will refrain from describing, but this time including snake-handling copperheads in the street and road trips out of the area. I slept on the car ride home.

Thursday, I got my oil changed and had lunch with Allison and her ladies at the Subway in Wal-Mart. Then, I went home to wash my car and messed with the wedding and reception music (thanks again to Tim who edited the departure song, Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Dancing!, to something with a better intro). I don't remember a whole lot more of the afternoon, but for dinner, all of Allison's family came over to eat with all of my family at my parents' house. It was busy and surprisingly fun--I expected it to be much more quiet and awkward than it was. Everyone sort of talked with everyone else, and the meal went smoothly.

The day of the wedding, I got up early to head over for the brunch and rehersal, but I kept forgetting things. While checking the car to make certain I hadn't forgotten something, I activated the car's hazard lights. To get through the story quickly, the button broke, and I had a panicked and unscheduled visit to the Chevy dealership, where they kindly fixed it in about five minutes' time (for free!). There was tons of food at the brunch, but it was really quite nice and I had a good time hanging out with my boys and Kevin (Dr. Youngblood, my old Greek teacher and our officiator). The large group at the brunch excused themselves, as I had previously asked my family to do, and we had a brief rehersal for the wedding. Afterwards, I left to take care of a few errands, and I also got to spend some time talking to Spike as we cruised the backroads.


Skipping to the wedding proper, we took our wedding pictures at 5 and the wedding began at 6:30. It went without a hitch, and according to one souce, Allison and I looked very beautiful and super excited and happy the whole time. Huzzah! I teared up during the vows, but I don't think many people noticed (no one has mentioned it to me, but Alli noticed). The reception went well despite the unplanned absence of two desserts, and I had a great time seeing people and drinking lots (~six glasses) of the green party punch that Leah made for us. My groom's X-men carrot cake turned out very well, and as far as I know nobody tried to take the Superhero Squad figures that we placed on it.

All in all, the wedding was a brilliant success and I'm fairly certain a good time was had by all. I'll describe some of our honeymoon in a later post.

moving and grooving

So the last post was way too whiny and emo-ish. Things have been pretty good. I spent the weekend moving furniture from one place to another. Allison's mom drove a U-Haul of furniture here and I traded my labor for the furniture. I assembled a nice new queen-sized bed with a pillowtop mattress. I'm still a bit frustrated with never being alone with Allison, but I try to meet her for breakfast before her friend gets up. Sadly, that has meant that I've been sleeping normal people hours, which I haven't done in a long time.

My roommate moved out Saturday/Sunday, so I've been able to turn much of my apartment's chaos into a more organized civilization. The piles of boxes of shower gifts have finally been unpacked and organized in the kitchen. Allison and Reena helped a lot with unloading them. The new furniture and loss of a roommate has made this place more cozy, but a certain new roommate will really help it--fewer than 11 days from today. I think I'm going to go finish reading one of the lais of Marie de France. I'm almost done with Guigemar. After all, I've got a hot breakfast date tomorrow at 8:30.

Of roommates, music, plans, and jealousy

Karel is moving out this weekend, lordwilling, and we signed the roommate release forms yesterday. With him packing and me starting to move Alli's stuff here, the apartment is pretty much a wreck. He gave me a talk about how he felt like we had been treating him rudely, wherein he complained about silly unimportant things and things that happened over six months ago. I just apologized and have continued to be positive and friendly--he's moving out so soon that there's no reason to stir up or develop any more agression or enmity. I'm a little worried about his friend buying me a new headset (he stepped on my brand new one) since Karel's moving out, but I'm pretty sure the guy will come through.

I've recently been wanting more new music, and a lovely conversation with Justin has led to several downloads. This year's new albums include two I already had; Animal Collective's Meriwether Post Pavilion was great, but the Decemberists' Hazards of Love has yet to woo me. Fortunately, my good friend has informed me about new albums by Akron Family, Immaculate Machine, Metric, and several other bands. So I downloaded the new Camera Obscura, the Akron, and the Metric albums, but I have yet to find the Immaculate Machine album. I'll track down the other bands (the Thermals, the 1990s, etc.) after I've given these a listen. I'm listening to Akron Family's Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free as I type--very good so far.

I've been sort-of busy with misc. wedding stuff. Making honeymoon confirmations, moving her stuff over here, and cleaning my stuff so moving will be less painful for everyone--that's how I've spent my last week. Yesterday her best friend got into town, but I'll get back to that. Friday her mom comes into town, and she's bringing us furniture! Her parents are moving overseas soon, and they're giving us their couch, chair with ottoman, and some bookshelves. She's also bringing us our bed from Ikea, all of which are awesome (she, the bed, and Ikea). That means that I'll be able to sleep on our queen-sized pillowtop bed for the next weeks. I've been sleeping on a creaky and ancient twin bed since I moved here in 2006, and it will be nice to roll around a bit more. Also, in that vein, I'm trying to train myself to only use one pillow to sleep. It's weird, and I don't like it, but we were given two feather pillows at one of our showers, and I find that using two is perfect, just like normal pillows, but better. But I feel like I'm being unnecessary and that I should wean myself down to one. Anyway, the next few weeks are going to be busy, and they will probably involve stress and some petty fighting.

As these weeks begin to become more and more stressful and busy, Allison will soon be off work and free to do more for the preparations. Also, her best friend Reena is in town to hang out and help. I met her very briefly last night, but already I get weird vibes--not from her, but from Allison. She acts quite differently around her friend, and that included hugging me and pecking me goodnight, which was weird and a bit lame. I feel vaguely like this is a friend from the past who makes her revert to some past self. Also, in some bizarre development, she reminds me of a girl I used to know here who makes me feel weird and awkward that moved away. So in knee-jerk reaction to my beloved's best friend, I feel awkward and annoyed. She seems nice, but the initial weirdness of similarity makes me want to avoid her, but then there's also resentment that I'll probably only get to see Allison with her around, too. We probably won't have any "just us" hangout time till the honeymoon, or at least it will be minimal. At this point I kind of wish I had caved to her and let us elope to avoid this headache. So now I'm bored at home without much to do, and I just want to go help Alli with whatever she might need, but she no doubt wants to spend time with her best friend she hasn't seen in a year, which is totally understandable. She told me yesterday that she doesn't want me to leave town so I can be her moral support, but I'm not even sure how much I'll get to see her with all these people coming to visit her. Maybe I'll just run to visit home or a friend this weekend or next week. I know I'm being a good bit petty and jealous, but I just want the headache of wedding prep to be done and for us to start the happily (and sometimes grumpily) ever after.

Roommate Issues

I wrote a three-paragraph rant post for the blog and decided I should just try to be happy with what I have.

I'll have a better roommate in 26 days. (Let's just hope he moves out)

Dungeons and Dragons

So! Allison and I are visiting my parents in order to manage some wedding business, and we scheduled a very important event for our first night in town! As no one wants to DM (almost ever) I ended up running the game, but that's sort-of fun too. Here's the party make-up:

Alli - Bowsey the Elf Ranger
Allen - Avdron the Dwarf Fighter
Spike - Oberlectrisk the Dragonborn Warlord
Tim - Thraak the Dragonborn Barbarian
Jenna - Kyllakin the Elladrin (?) Wizard
Ian - Rellyk the Half-Elf Warlock

Pretty decent party make-up, really. I've been running one of the WotC pre-made adventures (because I am a Dungeon Master by necessity rather than choice) and it's pretty fun and easy. Fourth edition's style of listing monsters with all of their attacks with the bonus of each makes pre-made adventures especially helpful.

We only get to play when I visit for a few days (mom always gets grumpy if I come and don't spend much time with the family, so one night must be "family night," [or Settlers of Catan / Ticket to Ride night] that's tonight this time). There are two main issues with gaming in town. First, at the beginning I have to remind everyone what they have done and are trying to do for the mission (here, they're in catycombs that have been inhabited by hobgoblin forces to secure a town's buried relics and captured prisoners). Second, and this has always been a major issue with gaming groups here, people talk too much and pay too little attention! It's not that bad, but I continually have to say, "OBERLECTRISK, GO!" or "Your turn, RELLYK!" etc. (it makes me feel a bit like a pokemon trainer in battle!). I guess it just makes sense that everyone wants to talk to everyone else about their personal preferences about geeky stuff (examples: Spike - Mother 3, Ian - Warhammer Online, Allen - randomy neat geeky stuff he can do with his iPod touch). Oh well. Also, this was Alli's third game and she did better than ever. I was not only really impressed with her, but I was also super in love with her. Boo-ya.

Ian has said officially that he'll DM after the adventure is over. I am going to play either a rogue (Striker) or a Bard (leader). Whoop!

Wedding Shower

Sunday, Allison and I visited my parents, so my mother could throw her a shower. Such events are a bit spooky for me for a few reasons (questions about church, school, or future plans), but Allison was scared of the pressure of meeting so many ladies from my mom's church and work. As it turned out, my mom decided I would go, too. That way, Allison would be less isolated, and I could introduce her to people (as if I knew more than like 50-60%). In my opinion, that was a slightly obfuscated excuse for my attendance.

See, my mother's parents were in town for the weekend. Grandmother and Papa, as I grew up calling them, are a bit particular, very social, and somewhat demanding. My theory about men at the shower is twofold: 1) I had to go because Allen, my brother, went to his, and/or 2) Papa really wanted to go and feel included so all the men of our family had to show up. Regardless, I had Allison and Allen, and I also summoned two of my other groomsmen, Jeffrey and James.

James and I talked about school some (and I mentioned my regrets that Tim purchased all those New Mutants issues from him before I knew about it), and Jeffrey and I talked about his recent tour with his band, Cheap Time, through Europe. The punk got to visit Croatia, Serbia, and Macedonia. Those are three of the few European countries that I have yet to see. He traveled all over, but he was fairly unimpressed with the greatness of Europe. Perhaps playing so many shows draws from the desire to sight-see (though I have difficulty seeing that). He also gave me copies of his new solo LP and a 7" that he has released since I last saw him. His family got us the crock pot we wanted (and are keeping), and his sister and brother-in-law, also friends of mine, bought us the silverware set we wanted from Target.

Remarkably, we only had a handful of stuff we did not like, and only two or three repeat items. So now Allison and I are now the proud owners of tons of stuff, including 2 crock pots, and 3 rice steamers. We also got some delightful (read: lame) knick-knacks with Christian messages (example: door-knocker with a "knock and it shall be opened unto you" quote). While I'm totally into God and Christianity, I would prefer to keep such related objects to a minimum, especially without any artistic value (I'd LOVE some Byzantine art--especially authentic pieces).

Now my apartment is full of stuff. Karel and I have had the kitchen overly full before now, but if I start putting much of this stuff out, it will only fit on the counters or piled on top of each other. And I try not to clutter the apartment up too much (except all my toys and books piling up everywhere!). At least we also got a vacuum cleaner which I think is my favorite gift! I can keep the floor nice and relatively dirt/fuzz free!

I have an abnormal love of vacuuming. I hate dusting, because it takes a long time and has so many steps to removing objects and then spraying then wiping. Vacuuming is like a respite of delight. It offers both the satisfaction of being productive by cleaning while also being fairly quick and painless. My favorite part is when you vacuum carpet, you go forward over and leave tracks of extra clean-ness and then pull it back over to make the carpet go back and forth between different shades. Those lines are super fun! I vacuum like I'm washing a mirror, start at the far end (top on mirror) and work back in rows. So fun!

I'm not going to finish that last post.

So! Last night I had horrific and scary dreams. Also, I woke up sicky and distressed. So, anyways. made tea to drink while I worked on my computer.

Several months ago, Allison, Tim, and I huddled around my computer, trying to dismantle it to repair the fan. If you didn't know, it makes a horrible noise that sounds like a cross between killer bees in a scifi movie and a weed-eater. Don't worry, though. It only makes the noise if you do something particularly trying on the computer (like, say, run iTunes while typing this entry). For that reason I've sort of avoided taking my computer for adventures to coffee shops. Anyway, on the adventure to get to the fan in my HP Pavilion dv9000 notebook, we discovered that to get to the fan, one merely has to disassemble the drives, power devices, keyboard, backscreen, sensor pad, MOTHERBOARD, and then you get to the fan. How dumb is that?

But that adventure taught me how to get at least the first few steps done. With my cup of Lady Grey tea, I sat down to unscrew ~19 screws to remove my keyboard. Afterwords I blew in it a lot with compressed air. I let it sit for a bit longer, then reassembled the laptop.

No changes. In fact, I discovered that c, C, D, E, and # wouldn't work. Very weird. I called HP, and proceeded to waste around 45 minutes for them to tell me the one thing I'd been asking all along. For them to fix it, I'd have to mail my computer to them (Alli did that last fall and the 1 month repair time stretched to ~3). I then regrettably informed them that we had wasted each others' time. I went ahead and booted my comp back up, and keys began to start working again. Now they all do, and I figure it just needed to cool. Lucky me. Also, lucky it was just water, so there was no stickiness or damaging residue. It's like a karmic pat-on-the-back for being semi-healthy.

Went to a comic store to pick up some back issues (super cheap), and had fun. Allison bought her first set of dice so she won't have to borrow them for Dungeons and Dragons (green with coppery/goldish numbers). After some coffee and wandering, we came home where I made spaghetti. We then watched several episodes of The Big Bang Theory (my first time--funny stuff!). Alli left, I cleaned dinner stuff, and now I'm babbling to the two people who read this.

Thanks and goodnight!

Easter get-together

Tonight I had several friends over to hang out and eat dinner for Easter. A few interesting thoughts:

A) My apartment is too small/crowded for big gatherings at the moment.. maybe it will be better when my roommate moves out and I'm happily married
B) My roommate is unknowingly odd and rude. How hard would it be to at least walk out of his room and say "Hi" to our guests? This is not the first time, either. Why can't I have roommates like in Scott Pilgrim?

I'll post more later, spilled water on laptop and it's being odd.. I am unable to use the letter between x and v, so I'm having to work around using it with different words. it's pretty entertaining, sort of. Going to turn my laptop all the way off to let it dry off and hopefully fix itself.

shift+e won't work either.. WeIRD.

First posts are generally dumb

So.. instead of introducing myself or some such genericness, I've decided to talk about my upcoming (May) wedding!

Allison and I have, with tons of help from her sister, Elizabeth, successfully mailed most of our wedding invitations. The dress stuff and tuxedo stuff is all figured out, and now we're to the particulars of the ceremony and reception. She's making me pick out the music, which baffles me slightly, but whatever. I'm happy to take some of the planning burdens, but I'm much too lazy to try to be original with my choices. During the reception, we'll play more music, which will be easier to choose (Pixies - La La Love You, Figurine - So Futuristic, etc.), but there's two ways to go with the music for the ceremony.

We could be traditional and just get through the ceremony pretty rapidly (most likely) or we can try to be original and have people either weirded-out or confused (unlikely because of the pressure to be awesome or at least interesting). So! I've twitted in attempts to borrow wedding music cds from people, with limited results. I couldn't find a collected download anywhere, either, so I suppose I'll end up going to Target or Best Buy to buy some. Blah.

There's a few really cool things about the wedding. My friend MattSmith is coming to be a groomsman from Korea, and that's really awesome. Also, Jeffrey has agreed not only to be a groomsman, but he has given me a FIVE smile guarantee for pictures. I'm quite excited about that. Elizabeth has been working on a photo montage of Allison and me, and she made me choose the music for that too (Suburban Kids with Biblical Names - Marry Me). That should be really cool, and I hope she uses some of the entertaining pictures of me that Adam let me borrow (the old d&d gang playing D20 Modern, a fps-style picture of Adam choking me, etc.). One common denominator for pictures of me, it seems, is either a big cheesy grin or a goofy face. Also, I'm excited about my groom's cake. For my brother's wedding they had a cheesecake of some kind (something with extra stuff like chocolate or coffee flavor or some such [I think cheesecake is best when it's just the cheesecake and no fruit or whatever]), but I'm slightly convinced that his wife was behind that decision more than he. Regardless, I've thought about my cake alot, and have decided upon an X-Men themed cake.

Really.

It'll likely be the Xavier Institute logo (the round one) on a rectangular cake with some figures stuck in the cake. Awesome. I can't decide if I want to use figures I don't care about (worthless X-Men figures from the Hall of Fame [frozen in place] toy set) or superhero squad guys with people like X-23, Beast, Magneto, etc. Either way, I'm very excited. One reason to do the former option would be that I wouldn't have to be terribly concerned about guests stealing them. Here's a picture of it. The idea was neat, sure. A twenty or thirty dollar set of the more popular figures that were, by the release of this set, older and more difficult to find. There's a key problem to the child who wants the set, however. There figures hve been glued or somehow frozen into their positions and are plastically attached to the display. Sure, it's neat to look at, but kids want to PLAY! So in an effort to make them semi-playworthy, I cut each figure from the case under their feet, but their arms/legs/heads/etc won't budge! Sauron's mouth opens and closes, and the professor's arm will move up and down, but that's about it! I guess the concept is interesting enough, but no child will look at that and think anything other than, "I want to play with those figures." There's no warning on the box that it's for display only, either. Or maybe I just don't remember one.

Either way, I'm excited about my cake. The wedding should be really stressful, but I cannot wait to be married to that beautiful woman. I've even gotten her into comics! Huzzah!