gaming

So to pick up where that last left post dropped off, my gaming life has improved in the past few months. I picked up Fable 2 again, and have begun obsessively purchasing every property in the game. The last major quest I did was the hero of will, I think. I own all of Bowerstone so far. In Lego Batman, I finally got everything to 100% and got all of the achievements. It took a while, but it was quite satisfying. Sort of working on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on the 360 right now, but that's mixed in with Fable 2, WoW, and Mario Galaxies (1), in which I've gotten about halfway.

Most of my video/computer gaming continues to be World of Warcraft. I'm raiding full-time with the Spartans on Dalaran server. We do MTR raids from 6:45-10 CDT, and we're currently struggling with the summer and pre-expansioncombined slumps. On 25 man, the lowest we've seen Lich King is ~50%, but on 10 man I haven't gotten any complete wings down other than the first--then again that's because our 10 man group sort of dissolved in the last month or so. The guild's main group (officers only, sort of) are kingslayers and have been working on the hardmodes. I'm really jealous when I think about it, so I try not to do so. Also, I seduced James into starting a new account so I can get the Recruit-A-Friend touring rocket (read: flying mount that can carry a passenger) on Xellos (my rogue).

The first season of Dungeons and Dragons: Encounters just ended, and Allison and I have enjoyed it. In Murfreesboro, our group was amazing and had great synergy and DMing, but the store we go to in Jackson isn't as cool. My character from the beginning, a Goliath Warden, died in a TPK in our first game here, but I came back as a Githzerai Avenger and the games got better (read: I dominated. 2 d20s>1 d20 Avengers FTW). Next season starts Wednesday, and though the characters must be the pregenerated ones, I'm still excited about the setting in Dark Sun. [side note, the Penny Arcade (and PvP and Starslip Crisis) podcast has been great]

I've also started running a game at our house loosely based in Eberron. Our group is full of familiar faces from my gaming past:

• Allen, brother, githzerai druid
• Spike, old friend, bullywug assassin
• Tim, computer magician, dwarf battlemind
• Allison, hot wife, kalashtar ardent

and starting this past week

• Leah, sister-in-law, human wizard
  

I'm also hoping to get Keith, ogre-sized awesomeness, to play--maybe then the party will have someone with a strength higher than 10. They played through the mini adventure in the DMG, but next time they'll start the adventure with some RPing in Sharn, the city of towers.

Also, on Memorial Day, we started playing the board game Power Grid, but it got late and we didn't get the chance to get very far before people had to leave. Still, it looked pretty near, and I'm sure I'll play it sometime soon.

Last Semester!

So I kept delaying posting in hopes that I'd post all about my holiday trip to Heidelberg, Germany or about the 2000-2009 period or the best of 2009, but any of those topics would take lots of work so it never happened.

That being said, I'm still having a blast being married to the most sweet and beautiful woman in the world. I'm taking my final class for my M.A. in history at Middle Tennessee State University, and it covers the Third Reich. Should be better than my road culture class (of last semester) in interesting-ness, but much worse as far as awesome people and teacher coolness. Oh well! Also, the professor of my Colonial America readings class last semester offered me a job researching for the Albert Gore, Sr. Center at MTSU. So I finally have a part-time job, and it pays pretty well to boot! I'll be researching the Clinton High School desegregation controversy, and traveling to various archives for that, but I'm not gonna go into that at length for the moment.

I hope you all are doing well.

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.

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.