So the DDXP website is up (kinda, sorta, maybe). Http://ddxp.baldmangames.com - you should check it out. It will cause you to lose ten pounds and a body part of your choice will grow in size. Honest
Yesterday was a good day.
Greey Bay Won? Check
Dallas Lost? Check
Boston Lost? Check
Wife was naked? Check
Kids did not ruin anything? Check
I was talking to a friend and realized the only way Dallas losing yesterday could have been anymore fun to watch is if at some point Tony Romo looked up to the owners booth and saw his GF Jessica Simpson getting banged doggy-style by Flav-Flav (YAA boyzzzzzz). The look on his face would have kept me pretty happpy and chuckling for weeks. I just keep imagining that giant clock he wears smacking her in the back of the head and it makes me laugh everytime.
So I play an elf swordmaster in Warhammer Online. Game is super sweet and playing with a bunch of buddies always makes it better. I like tanks. I think being married with kids makes me naturally inclined to take on roles that get me willingly abused. Perhaps some sort of martial reprograming happened when I put on the ring. I think at times the dwarf ironbreaker is a better tank but I cannot play short races. I think part of that is due to me being tall thus playing short would be weird. I think it more has to do with the fact that if I am playing in 1st person view playing a short race greatly increases the chances that I could be staring at a taller toons crotch. Just don't want to go there. We took a keep over the weekend which was a blast. Screenshots galore. Then we defended it for a while, went to bed, and Chaos took it back while we slept. Damn sleep.
- Location:Work
- Mood:
tired - Music:Sleepy
So been way to long. I keep flipping by the blog and thinking to myself 'Hmmm you should blog again and get some things off your plate' and then I never do. Just so busy right now. I get up way to early, get the kids ready and out the door with the wife, get myself ready for work, try to fit 60 hours of work into a 40 hour work week, head home to play with the kids and get them all into bed by 9pm. Then it's my best to get a few hours of work done on the project of the night before just passing out. I've nodded off sitting in my computer chair before but I've never fully fallen asleep. I think that will happen this year before it's all said and done.
So WoFS (Waste of Fucking Space) is gone for now. After playing the system and peoples sympathies here for all she could she was finally forced to either go on family leave or start showing the fuck up to work. So she is on family medical leave which runs out in December (and at least we don't have to pay her anymore while she is gone). I'm hoping she does not come back and we can just eliminate her and her position at that point. So many people I can think of to fill that position with who would love to make $18-19 bucks an hour for sitting at a desk all day. She is such a waste. My only hope is that one day after she croaks that she at least fertilizes something useful like a tree or maybe some fungus (and not even a cool fungus that kills you or makes you see pink elephants flying around Cincinnati after they win the Super Bowl).
I'm in charge of DDXP now. From start to finish. Contracts, hall layouts, where it is, ticket sales, judges, etc. The whole shebang. So it about doubles my work for the show but the new half is really new stuff for me. So stressing me out a bit as I have to create a lot of stuff (website, cart system, online payments, etc.) from scratch in a short amount of time. The show is going to be great this year. More LFR then you can play within the time frame of the show, plus multiple special events, plus the delve, dealer room is back, a long missing Wotc guest, and heck my big bald head as well. Just need to get a few things for the show done and running so I can remove some stress from my plate and add a helping of WAR back to it (Warhammer Online - Age of Reckoning - game kicks some serious ass - Go Order).
So last week part of the BT (Brain Trust) realized that we are dealing with global properties and that some of them are not in english. So she asked if we had gotten any written in Hindu or Muslim. My brain kinda did this jerk to the right as it tried to process that and I think I gave myself a minor concussion in the process. I told her no but we were expecting some in Catholic the following week. She just said "hmmmm" and wandered off. Such is my life.
My son thinks that 'No' is a fun game to play. Trying to teach him certain things are not to be touched (worked great with Karli) and slapping his hand and saying no. He just laughs his ass off at me and does it again. So I need to shift gears on him and try something new. Perhaps I'll put copies of Dragon that Jason edited on top of things I don't want him to touch. I don't think children services would approve but I won't tell them if you don't. I figure my insurance covers the therapy for the nightmares he'll have later in life.
Jason - you're going to DDXP. Drag Erik along with you and tell him he's getting his drunk on. We'll get Brill into town so the two of you can form a ''4th edition is for kids with Lewt skillz' posse and hit the strip club (located conveniently three blocks from the convention center). I still have those sweet Tokens metal cards and I need to trade them like 2-1 for your paper ones.
Go Packers – ya that’s right I said it
My daughter came home from school this week and told me that one of the boys at her school called her a ‘sexy baby’. She’s in kindergarten. I really thought I would not have to deal with that for at least another 5-7 years. My buddy told me that when you have a boy you only need to worry about one penis (his). With a girl you have to worry about every single penis in the world. I know I’m out-numbered about 3.2 billion to one but I swear she is not going to see one until she is 32 (or Palin learns how to not be a parrot).
I am so hoping Ohio goes blue this time. We have an awful lot of fucking rednecks living in the south but I think we have them outnumbered this year. We’ll see.
Holy crap the lady that sits across from me (Slim Shaky) is stupid and beyond that the most boring person alive. If at any point my life becomes remotely close to hers please shoot me. Do it. The Dave of today will thank you. Twice. She just had a conversation with somebody on the phone about the location of her mothers hemorrhoid and how she is asking the doctors if they will accept a payment plan to remove it. I could not get my headphones on fast enough. I just turned them up and kept clicking on the windows startup sound to drown it out while I tried to turn something else that made noise on. This is right up there with her 30 minute discussion last week with the electric company about why she should not be responsible for removing the tree limb (from her tree) that took out a power line and they cut down. Earlier this week was good as well. She had to come tell me that she needed to take an early lunch because her mom shit herself and she needed to go take care of it. I don’t need to know that. Just say ‘hey something came up I need to take an early lunch’ and leave it at that. Some people just love being fucking miserable and letting everybody around them know how rough they have it.
Okay that’s it for today. Need to figure out what I’m going to cook for dinner tonight as it’s my turn.
- Location:Work
- Mood: tired
- Music:Korn - Twisted Transistor
So been a while. A month in fact. I’ve not blogged since right before going on vacation (as if any time off in the month leading up to Gencon can really be called a vacation). I don’t really have much to rant on today. I know crazy. Just in a numb state of being still from Gencon. Good times.
Blogging – they really need a hit counter or something for these things. You really cannot tell if anybody is reading them or not. So is it really worth the typing or am I just talking to myself (which is still free at least for now and love how it freaks out the co-workers). So if you’re reading this make sure to leave a comment (even if just to say I suck – which yes I know) or better yet add me to your friend list. It will give me warm fuzzies and keep me from kicking a PETA person (okay I might anyway but I’ll think twice about it just for you).
Gencon. What can I say. If you’ve never been then it is hard to describe the utter joy and insanity that this show represents. I’ve been going since the early 90’s with a few missed shows here and there (dang wedding and kids being born – ya know I just realized I need a little smiley guy that shakes his fist in the air – fight the power smiley – need to look into that).
I arrive on Tuesday. I have to start things off Wednesday morning and have found it’s just better for my general sanity to do the flights and unpacking Tuesday and then dive into things instead of adding it to Wednesday morning. Drawback is one more night away from the family. As the kids get older this sucks more and more. I miss them a lot while at shows.
Wednesday: I awake at the crack of 9am. It’s the nicest sleep-in of the show for me. I get a nice big breakfast downstairs and then head over to the convention hall. I check into Sagamore Ballroom (RPGA ground zero for the show) and am pleasantly surprised to see everything is at least in the general area of right. I have a lot of pallets awaiting my evil minions dissections. My HQ setup crew shows up and I let them do their thing (it’s best not to get in a woman’s way when she is organizing something – I’ll just fuck it up first class). We get a few pallets broken down and stuff organized. I’m feeling good. We have our judges meeting (did I mention I had 217 judges this year – we rock) at 7pm I talk to a few marshals after that and we call it a night and hit Champions.
I have dinner with some of my HQ staff and Tulach (RPGA Content Manager I think is his title right now). My buddies in the bar section are texting me non-stop during dinner. So I finish up and head over. We start out with myself, Dru Moore, my buddies from home Greg and Gib, and Roger (home group guy). Gib has one beer and goes to bed. Dude is 21 and he’s done after a single beer. Sally. We’re joined shortly after that by Jason Bulmahn and Erik Mona (Paizo) and Mike Mearls (Wotc). We proceed to drink a lot of Sam Adams and tell silly gamer stories until they eventually close and kick us out. It was a really good time and unfortunately with how busy the show is one that will not repeat itself (there is something to be said for smaller shows). We all go way back to when we were really nobodies but at least nobodies all together. It’s nice to see how far we’ve all come since then and definitely a testament to the RPGA having some of the finest gaming minds in the world in its ranks. The fact that a lot of RPGA types now work for Wotc and Paizo and have names on the front of a lot of books is no accident.
Show kicks off Thursday morning at 8am for us (we’re there of course way before that). It’s crazy. We hit Saturday numbers pretty much right out of the gate. We’re popping off 100+ tables of games every 5 hours like clockwork. My judges and staff are handling it great and we sit every real ticket plus a few hundred players on generics on top of that. I check into my email around lunch to find my normal quantity of judge emails from those that suddenly ‘cannot make it’. I resist, barely, the urge to sign them up to every Viagra spam list I can find with their emails. I know they will do it to me. It happens every year. I even have it broken down into percentages and can even tell you from what pool of judges they will come from. You sign-up extra judges know it‘s coming but it still requires some judges to step up and do an extra slot or move from an event they are comfortable with to one they are not. They are great and step-up when needed. We have a great gang (ya I know I said it before but I’ll do it again).
Jason posted his picture for the Pathfinder room in his blog so I have to do the same.
(this picture reprsents about 20% of my hall - so use your imagination)
It’s the big room baby. 132 tables for regular games, 16 tables for the D&D Delve, 3 tables of D&D beginners character creation, DDI station, Author signings, and 250 seats for D&D Mini’s tourneys. This year we filled it all. My judge pool and room size matched up just about perfect. With the construction going on the next few years we will be pretty much limited to this size. I talked with the onsite staff and think we can move a few things to get another 10 tables in. That will be about it. We might have to expand into the night more often to meet the demand or just accept for the next few years that we cannot and plan for the future.
The show rolls along. It’s 8PM Saturday night. It’s judge swag time. The pile this year is massive. A new record (pretty much the theme of this show) for what I have to give out. I have over $36,000 in product for my judges. No extra 0’s there people. I have $10K in Forgotten Realms Campaign Sourcebooks alone (more then I think everybody else at the show combined had for sale). I hand out $2,000 in the new 4th edition DM’s screen as freebies to almost every single judge before we even start. I personally shake the hand and hand out the swag to every single judge (along with my HQ staff – Willi started the line and I anchored it in the middle). It’s insane and by the end my back is always TOAST from standing on the concrete for 3-4 hours straight but well worth it. Takes a long time for the line to move through so I think next year I need to just accept I cannot shake every hand myself and I’ll split it into two lines.
Sunday is normally a slow day. People sleep in or just start back home a little early. Not this show (show of records). We sit down another 600 people to play games. The D&D Delve is lined up around the side of the hall. Mini’s are rolling into their $5,000 final tables for their championship. Life is good. The slot rolls to a close and we get our prize packages together for the D&D Championship. Mouths are watering at the big piles of stuff and even more so when I stack an 8 gig Ipod Nano on the top of the pile for each member of the winning team. Numbers are added and 3/5ths Canadian wins the day. I think it took a few minutes for them to stop jumping up and down screaming before we could shake their hands, get their names, and hand them their prizes. Sometimes it’s good to be the king.
3pm. We’re packed up. Hall is mostly empty. I’ve swagged out a few industry types (greasing wheels never hurts) and the pallets are in the hall looking all empty and sad. I say my goodbyes to a few friends I won’t see for 6 months (DDXP) or a whole year (Gencon next year). It’s sad but at the same time I’m ready for it to be done. I head down to the dealers hall to say goodbye to a few friends there as well (Ruth Thompson and Alan Williams – awesome artists check their stuff out) and check-in at the Wotc booth right about the time the hall closes and a giant cheer goes out from the exhibitors (it’s a happy tired cheer and worth hearing at least once). We set our meeting time for dinner and I hit my room and collapse for two hours.
7pm – Buco de Pepo’s time. Family style Italian and a Gencon final day tradition. I take out my HQ staff along with Chris Tulach and Rob Watkins from Wotc. Good food and relaxing times. When done I say goodbye again to friends I won’t see until next year. Gencon is such a happy and sad time all wrapped together. Now if I can just get Hippy back out to a show again (instead of hiding during shows and pretending he’s happy – come on dude – you know you want to play games) we’d be good. To top off the final night I hit the movies with some friends and see Tropic Thunder. Holy shit was that movie funny. If you are a goob (and if you’re reading this then yes you are a goob) then get some others goobs together and go watch it.
Monday: It’s time to go home. Cannot be easy though. I check-in with the wife and she of course reminds me that my tags on my car (sitting back in Cleveland) are expired. Great. So I fly back in and instead of going home and crashing until my kids get home I have to drive to Echeck (waste of time) and then stand in line at the BMV for a little sticker that costs me $50. So now I’m tired and I feel like somebody screwed me. Whoo hooo go me.
So it’s done. Another year gone. I have 3 months of absolutely nothing but making my wife happy (okay I’ll need more time then that), playing video games (I have some Warhammer Online to try and a whole lot of Korean scum to shoot in the head in Crysis: Warhead), and not thinking about shows. Then DDXP will ramp up. I’ll spend my normal time getting ready and trying to convince some friends I don’t see enough at Gencon to come out and have fun.
I’ll win a few lose a few. We’ll see. It's my life after all.
I’ll win a few lose a few. We’ll see. It's my life after all.
Dave
- Location:Work
- Mood:
exhausted - Music:Ipod on Random
Man rant day. Somebody mentioned earlier once again that I hadn’t blogged in a while. Life gets crazy and things liking writing down your thoughts just seems to float away. Probably why I’m so stressed out again when I should be relaxing.
My freelance project is done. Done and turned in. Of course revisions will come back but fixing things takes a lot less effort then the creative part you had to do in the first place. Due to the abysmal communication on this project from start to this point I have no clue when that will happen. It was definitely not the smooth professional project I was expecting. So a learning experience but not sure it’s one I would rush to repeat without more info going in.
Stupidity at work and in my side jobs is eating me alive. At this point in things we should almost be on cruise control heading into my vacation next week and the show next month. Instead I’m constantly pulling things out of the fire or wanting to light them on fire myself.
We had a department meeting last week. It was taken over by the president of the Brain Trust (BT). She proceeded to find a horse, beat it to death, pulled out a defibulator and brought it back from the brink of oblivion so she could beat it to death again. The entire discussion could be summed up by this statement “Well we keep forgetting to do that so we need to change the process”. By changing the process they mean let’s give it to Dave and his two partners in crime and have them do it. That way we won’t forget it because it won’t be our job anymore. WTF!!! When is forgetfulness an acceptable trait in your job skill set? When is the fact you can’t do your own fucking job a reason to give parts of it to somebody else so they can do more and you can do less? If so I’m going to start forgetting all kinds of shit. Like feeding myself and paying bills. Maybe I can shovel those off on them. Nice. Go get my lunch you worthless POS. See now I’m just being mean but it lightens my mood. I guess I am evil. Nice.
So I have a lot of people working for me at Gencon. A lot. A new record in fact. So much so that two companies have already stated that they cannot cover the tickets they sold in the system because we took their judges. So go us. They are also running 3.5 edition games and hey look nobody wants to judge or play them anymore. For all this doom and gloom about 4th edition it seems to be doing very awesome right now (in fact am I allowed to say very cool?). I don’t wish bad about any other company as that’s just not how I roll but at the same time I’m very happy that judges are wanting to work for me and my team. It shows we put on a good event and have a good retention and acquisition tools in our belts.
Ass Kissing / Leg Humping – It’s got to stop. Really people. If my leg is something you feel is worthy of humping then take a step back and reassess things. Yes I do have a kinda cool job running shows. It’s taken a lot of hard work to get to this point and I get to reap the benefits. Go me. Stop with the constant ass-kissing though. I know you want a better position, or more swag, or just to hang out because hey all the cool kids are doing it but please stop. I just want to do my job, make sure you guys have a great time judging, and go hang out with some friends and relax. I know why the Wotc guys hide now because it has to be a lot worse for them.
WOFS (Waste of Fucking Space) is back. She had knee surgery last week so I guess all the kneeling to pray did not work out so well. Then again he might be testing her willingness to kneel and pray with a bad knee. That would be a wicked funny god. I vote for him.
Slim Shakey is now the most negative person I know. She is so fucking unhappy with her life and everything around her that sunshine no longer shines on her house. She is also the anti-change. She can’t handle it. Her brain is just petrified into it’s current thought processes and if something is moved on her desk I swear she would stare at the place it used to be until somebody moved it back. She will happily (well as happy as she gets) sit there and push the blue button all day long but if you changed the color of the button she would be floored. Unable to function and would get even more negative then normal (eventually so negative that it’s almost a positive in a strange way because it entertains the living shit out of me). It’s 4:15 right now which means she leaves in 15 minutes. She is starting at her clock and phone right now. It’s what she does the last 15 minutes of every day. I’m trying to find an extension for my wall so when she does it I can no longer see her. I mean I feel bad for her clock having to deal with that 5 times a week.
Vacation. I need it. Bad. I want to relax and read a book and maybe once I get down there and everything is unpacked and in its exact place my wife will let that happen. She gets so frigging wound up before trips. Everything in the house has to be spotless before she leaves (which is nice to come to – I’ll admit that one). It just makes preparing the trip a horrible experience. It’s almost like we need to dig the shit hole of a funk that we are in even deeper before we’re allowed to come out of it and go relax.
I’m going to strangle my judge list. I am. They just don’t frigging get it. When I say stop posting shit that has nothing to do with the show they just keep going. I’m almost to the point of just locking down posting. I’ll just start deleting them making the same joke twenty times of a single post.
Now it’s time to relax and hopefully spend some quality time with my son while the wife and daughter go spend way the heck to much money on their hair.
- Location:Work
- Mood: drained
- Music:Pink Floyd - Momentary Lapse of Reason
So a buddy pointed out that it’s been a while since I blogged (and see I started with the word ‘So’ again) and he’s right. Not sure why. I’ve been really busy with Origins, Gencon, and my freelance project but not like I don’t write this from work anyway (hence my normal chipper mood). I think part of the problem is I stopped leaving MSWord open so I could type as random thoughts popped in my head or took time to make notes so I would remember those random thoughts later. They say memory is nothing but connected snippets of small memories and smarter people have more connections and thus can access those faster. I’m guessing my brain is that in a giant blender and eventually (with enough monkeys on typewriters) two connect and I have a good idea. Mostly I just make noises like a retard and drool on things.
WOFS has not annoyed me to much lately. I know that’s entirely due to me avoiding her to the point of being rude but hey she’ll get the idea eventually right? No she won’t. She is so fake friendly that I think she doesn’t even know how she really feels anymore. If I get one more ‘Thank the Lord’ email for whatever minor good thing happened to her that day I will snap and choke her or kick a cat. Choking her while kicking a cat would count for a double word score.
Why is it that most important decisions or at least the ones that have the power to annoy me are made by people who are idiots? Here is my latest favorite. A landlord of ours got $4,800 back from the city and our lease says we get that (details – you really don’t care I know). So the city writes him a check and then he gets our field rep to agree to give it to us over 5 years. So we’ll get $80 a month for half a decade. WTF??? We pay twice that in monthly rent but he needs to break down his unexpected windfall over the next two presidential terms?
So there is this dude who annoys me. He always has and I know he’s stabbed me in the back a few times. I’ve just ignored it because he’s going away soon and the drama from it all is just not worth it. Well it happened anyways and he’s on the out now. So I just want to forget him. Have him disappear and not waste though on him. What does my dumb ass do but click wrong on AIM and start chatting with him thinking it’s one of my other friends. So now I’m sure he thinks we’re all buddy buddy again. Great. Months of intentionally fostered ill-will blown in one nice gesture. Go my life.
Slim Shaky – as shaky. She brought a document to me today to ask if a number was a 3 or 5. She was shaking the paper so bad I honestly could not tell and guessed. I wanted to say it was a Greek symbol. Perhaps for fire or death. My buddy pointed out that I should have said 4 just to really screw with her. Suitably evil and noted for next time.
Stupid ad campaigns. Our HR department pretty much brings in anybody that’s willing to show up for free and do a ‘lunchinar’ across the street. Most are pretty stupid. This weeks takes the cake though. The sign said ‘In Pain – Perhaps Acupuncture is the solution.’ HUH???? So you’re in pain and the possible solution is more pain from needles being stuck in your body. Now I’m not saying it might not work. I don’t know and really have no desire to ever find out. It’s just a bad way to advertise I think. It’s like saying ‘Hemorrhoids? Perhaps a metal rod in your ass is the solution’. You don’t inflict mental pain association with the problem you’re trying to fix in the ad to get them to show up. It’s just not a good idea.
Bad Nicknames. . oh I’ve seen my share. All the show accounts I manage have log-in nicknames and some are bad. Really bad. There needs to be some rules I think.
1 – If you’re female no part of your nickname can sound hot or sexy without a panel of 10 random guys agreeing. Your girlfriends don’t count. They won’t tell you that your ass is ugly. Guys hanging with other guys will. I have two in my groups that have nicknames such as ‘Hottexasgirl’ and ‘Sexyfinemama’ and TRUST ME neither one of them is remotely close. Not in the ballpark. Not in the ballpark for the opposing team four states over. It’s just wrong
2 – No part of your name can reference a movie character as if you are that person. You are not Luke Skywalker or Mr. Anderson (I still love how he says that name in the movie though). Now if your name is made up like it would fit in that genre then that’s okay. So Darthvader is not allowed. Now darklordfaldor or some random crap based off Jar-Jar is okay (lame buy okay).
3 – I just want to go back to rule one again. I cannot stress this one enough. Guys have mental images when they see usernames. I think everybody does. We know the image is never what the person actually looks like but we do like to think it’s in the vicinity though. When it’s not even close it causes a little piece of us to die. Stop killing us.
Okay buddy is calling me so we’ll pick this up next time.
So it’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything as a buddy pointed out to be a few nights back. Made me think why and then I realized that I’ve been busy and grumpy. So grumpy that I think if I was blogging it would be nothing but cuss words and little $*#& when I could not even swear enough to get my point across. 
I guess we all need to spank the monkeys a lot more. I nominate anyone shorter then myself. Get on it. 
The world is pretty screwed up. I think that’s the curse of being an intelligent and reasonably informed person. You realize this and it’s frustrating. You can’t just watch Nascar and wonder if they’re ever going to turn right. I think that’s why I used to, and hell still do, love Beavis and Butthead. It required no thought. There was no deep meaning to it or happy hug moment at the end. You could just sit there and chuckle like a moron (which is what most of the population does daily to their lives in general) and not feel to guilty. It almost makes you understand where the seeds of communism or a benevolent dictator come from. Some intelligent person with an evil streak had to sit there and come to the conclusion that people are frigging idiots and why should they trust anything to them as they’ll surely just screw it up. Then of course the whole absolute power thing kicks in and best intentions and such.
I guess we all need to spank the monkeys a lot more. I nominate anyone shorter then myself. Get on it.
Mariah Carey. How is she not the poster child for fucking sluts? Her music is marginal at best. I’ll admit I do not like her music in general but I can respect it has some basic talent behind it and she can rhyme on occasion. How is she a superstar though? It’s the whole slut factor layered over some fake tits and skimpy clothes. Which is fine and dandy as she is far from the first person whose business model revolved around that but why are we attributing talent where there is none? Why is she not on the same shelf with the Pussycat Dolls, Jessica Simpson, and Carmen Electra? Where their sole sellable quality is men’s desire to fuck the living shit out of them. The music is just an excuse to make another soft-porn video and slap it everywhere they can find to put it.
When did I get to the age where MTV sucks? It does. My wife watches a few of their reality shows (Real World and the Road Rules/Real World drama challenges) but everything else is shit. Anytime I flip by it I have no desire to stop on anything it’s showing. Not I stop on VH1 all the time so I guess I’m old now.
So another meltdown moment today which I guess shows my age. I was listening to Queen (Freddy rocks) and Under Pressure comes up (Mercury and Bowie is genius) and the cleaning girl (who looks to have the IQ that is normal associated with fungus) has to poke her head into my office and go ‘Oh you listening to Vanilla Ice . .he rocks’. ARGGGGGG. Where the heck does that comment come from and how can it be uttered without something on her body exploding and ending her life?
You know what cheers me up though
Hmmmmm . .beer
Was checking some friends blogs and realized that just about everybody has seen Iron Man already. Let me go over the last five movies I’ve seen from most recent: Horton Hears a Who, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Enchanted, Shrek the Third, and Transformers. So one good one in there (Horton was not bad and the enjoyment from the look on your kids face makes up for it in the end). My wife is taking the kids in a few weeks to visit her redneck sister in Alabama for 3 days and I think I’m going to just spend two nights hitting the movies and watching as many as I can. There are just some flicks you should see on the big screen. If not now that my son is a little older I need to start sneaking out once they’re in bed like I used to.
Having some friends over tomorrow for a LFR Playtest. We’re kinda limited still on who we can use for it since all the materials are 4th edition. Should be a good time (anytime you hang with friends, play games, and eat food that’s horrible for you is a good time). Wife is visiting family with the kids so it will be a gaming good time with no interruptions to boot. I know I’ll pay for it in some fashion at a later date but I’ll take what I can get for now.
I need one of these for my work space
Okay enough silly pictures.
We got our massive raises this year today. I need to figure out how it relates to how much more I’m paying for gas and how bad I’m really getting screwed in the ass by the oil companies. On a nicer note though Shell posted a 25% profit increase for quarter one (which is already on top of their records from last year). Why did I not dump my life savings into oil companies as soon as I knew we were going to start bombing radicals back into the stoneage.
- Mood:awake
So 35 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back. Seems a lot of people I know have been saying that lately. The Cleveland locals (NBC, Fox, CBS, & ABC) went HD through Dish Network last night. Finally I can watch Lost and Football in HD. Just one problem. They’re on the 61.5 bird (satellite) and my dish points to 110, 119, and 129. So my installer for HD last month picked wrong on his coin-flip between 61.5 and 129. No biggy I’ll just have them adjust it. First it took me 20 minutes to get the lady on the phone to actually believe me that they were on 61.5 – heaven forbid a customer actually have a clue when calling in. So after that we finally get to the point where she has accepted that I’m correct. ‘okay sir now it’ll just be a one time payment of $99 and we’ll . . .’ not sure what she said after that because I got that red blurry vision and interrupted her. What??? You install my new dish for HD, for my purpose of getting local HD channels in the next few months when they go live, and now since you pointed it the wrong way in January I have to pay for you to come and adjust it? WTF. So 3 different reps later I finally get somebody far enough up on the fucking food chain to realize that I just need the existing dish turned a little to pick it up and it won’t cost me anything. Go Dish Network. Everything with that company involves bitching till you get up the food chain some and then they’ll give you whatever you want. Sometimes that takes 2 minutes but in this case it took 35.
A note though for you Dish customers. You can get Cinemax for 2 years for 2 pennies if you go direct pay. Nothing like some old movies and soft porn at 10. Remind me to turn that off before my son gets old enough to realize he likes boobies again.
So I was forced to talk to WOFS yesterday. She mentioned that they were tearing down our old office space and if I wanted an extra wall for mine I should get it. I told her once again that our old walls were 3 inches higher then our new ones. Which she of course dismissed saying they were the same (I just shrugged – arguing that point would have required me to talk to her even more). So I went down to our old area today and hey look everything is exactly as it was last week and the five years before that. I was confused for a second until I remembered ‘Oh ya . .she’s a fucking idiot’. She had one of my coworkers today cornered and when she turned as I walked by he made the motion of putting a live grenade into his mouth. If it was only that easy.
So my department is mostly filled with old bitties. They really don’t get subtle which is great as I can make fun of them all time and it just zooms right over their blue/grey hair but at the same time I need to make sure one of the guys is around so somebody besides myself can appreciate the genius of the insult. We have a mini-Hitler (MH) here. He is Mr. Super Conservative and believes all crimes should end with a firing squad and if you don’t worship Jebus then nuke’em. He’s not a horrible guy but he is fun to poke with the liberal pointy stick to get him all wound up and on his soapbox (even on his soapbox he’s a foot shorter then me). He also whines a lot. So we have a food luncheon coming up for a 50th birthday (everybody brings in tons of junk food – I always bring chips – they’re easy and require me to do nothing involving the oven). MH said he would bring chip dip. I said that I thought he was in charge of cheese then it was mistake he was in charge of wine. Subtle and of course nobody got. Well they got it but of course 5 of them have to reply back that I spelled wine wrong and it should be whine. WELL NO SHIT!!! It’s the joke people. It’s not a rocket science of a joke either. Probably been used a million times in offices around the world. It was simple and blunt but gave me a little chuckle until the clueless brigade got a hold of it.
We have a technology meeting next week and TBT (The Brain Trust) is going to be there. We had a meeting about our software program once and one of them was pissed off because we did not point out there was a scroll bar in the program and they were missing information off the bottom of the screen. It’s a fucking scroll bar. If you don’t know what one is or how to use it or recognize that it’s even there then why are you doing anything other then shoveling cow manure ? Hell I have family members that run farms as the family business and they know what a scroll bar is. For that to be the 15 minute focus of a meeting shows why I have no hair and need quiet time in a small room.
I cannot get my FSB over 1600 stable on my new board. It’s irking me. I have got my quad-core from 2.4 to 3.2 pretty easily and I have plenty of juice and cooling to handle more but it won’t stay stable on me. I know it’s my memory timings which of course is my weak link in my OC knowledge so gonna have to lean on a buddy for that one or do a lot of readings on timings.
So I used to go to a lot of concerts. 6-8 a year easily but not so much anymore (from rocking to Metallica to Wiggles Live on Stage – go me). You ever hit a big ticket show though and like the opening band more ? I took Kathy to see Godsmack 5-6 years ago (only reason they rock at all is they named themselves after an Alice in Chains song). Opening was Staind. Staind totally blew them off the stage (and of course are huge now). Same thing happened back in 91 when we went to see GNR (Guns-n-Roses for you young fucks). SoundGarden opened and totally kicked ass. GNR in their normal fashion showed up to play 4 ½ hours later when half the people had already left and though it was a good show my money and beer had run out so long ago that I was grumpy about it.
Today’s motivator
Defeat – For every winner, there are dozen’s of losers. Odds are you’re one of them
- Location:Work
- Mood:
crazy - Music:Queensryche
So laughter is the best medicine. I find this to be true more and more often. Some say if you don’t sweat the small stuff it’s all small stuff but that’s a crock of shit. I am the king of not sweating the small stuff (well maybe at my shows a little but that’s because my crew works so smoothly I have nothing else to worry about). Even with that my car is making a funny noise and that noise distinctly sounds like dollar signs.
Laugh it off. It raises the spirits.
I’m back to my home game tonight after almost 3 months off. Between the new baby, the holidays, a writing assignment, DDXP, and then just life it’s been way to long. I am ready to jump back in. A new Playtest should start-up here in the next couple of weeks that will take us into June. I think once our 4th edition campaign officially starts-up these playtests will work themselves in a lot easier.
So WOFS is back today after two sick days. I was joking with my buddy that her productivity has been really good for her not being there. The physics definition of work is: ‘force times the distance through which it acts; specifically, the transference of energy equal to the product of the component of a force that acts in the direction of the motion of the point of application of the force and the distance through which the point of application moves’. So technically by that definition she is working merely be breathing. I would not call that a billable trait though.
She was on the phone earlier and I could not help overhearing (cuz she’s loud as fuck) her say the following:
“I know god gave him the cancer as a test for our family and we’ll pull through it.”
WTF????? Stop the presses and stop giving money for cancer research. We have the answers we’ve been seeking. God is the cause of cancer. Thus it’s impossible to find a cure for this deific decreed plague. We all need to suck it up and realize that you might just get cancer of the nuts and it’s a test of how much you really love your nuts. Or even better is he might want to test you so he’ll give your two year old cancer of the colon to see how you handle it. Gee that’s a warm fuzzy happy kitty picture of a loving deity. I think it goes along with the saying “God does not put more on our plate then we can handle”. So if you’re a competent intelligent person then you might get an extra helping of shit on your plate when you go through the buffet line of life? I guess it does pay to be a fucking retard (and thus we’re back to WOFS).
So Alanis Morissette is pretty cute and smart. I would mark her in my book of babes I would bang if I could just get this guy out of my head:
Who the heck would ever want to bang that guy much less go down on him at the movies. I really need to get my own tv-show I guess. I did like her part in Dogma though (I pretty much like everybody in it though – good good flick).
Did you ever have a group or song that got so overplayed that you cannot even listen to anything the group does anymore? I had that back in the 90’s with the band “Live”. I really enjoyed their stuff and picked it for my music club pick of the month (ya back when those things actually still existed and record stores were not as big and prevalent as they are today). During the 3-4 weeks it actually took for anything to show up the Oklahoma City bombing happened (the guy getting off with lethal injection was totally unfair – he needed a pair of jumper cables on his nuts for a decade or so then get back to me and I’ll update the next punishment for him). As with all the big disasters in the past couple of decades we as a society have to attach a song to it. We need to insert some news footage sound bites into it and then we can all rally around it to show our support and outrage over the situation. Personally I think that’s stupid and replaces people actually having to have intelligent conversations on the subject or what the root causes of it were but it makes all the sheepable happy and who am I to fight sheep. They played that ‘Lightning Crashes’ song so many times that I cannot listen to it. It invokes feelings of such utter cheesiness and fake feelings that it makes me want to puke. I’m the same with the Green Day song and 9/11. So the CD finally showed up and all I could do is laugh when I opened the package and saw it (forgot I had ordered it). I took it outside and without evening taking off the plastic wrap I stomped it into a billion or so pieces. It was very therapeutic. I dated this girl in NC once and she was a little crazy in the brain it turns out (though really good in the sack). A year or so later I came across an album she had talked me into buying when we were together that I never opened. So I tossed it in the backseat and forgot about it. Was traveling to Florida with my buddy Tom a few months later and we passed through NC so I gave it back to her (window down and out it went). Ya I know it was littering but just seemed like the right thing to do.
Spin Doctors. . whatever happened to those guys? Big giant album and that dude with the crazy ass hair and then poof gone. Kinda like Hootie and his gang. Listening to a 90’s alternative station today. Not sure how Spin Doctors were every considered an alternative band. I know singing about Jimmy Olsen and kryptonite is pretty geeky but geeky is not always alternative. More pop with a nerd subculture layered on to it.
Okay I’m done. Word to your mom
- Location:Work
- Mood: giddy
- Music:Everclear
4th edition, WFM's, WOFS, and Schooverizing
So another day and another blog starting with the word ‘So’. I am consistent if nothing else.
Okay so maybe that’s not a good thing.
Spent last night stuffing D&D mini’s into bags until I just could not do it anymore so went and read my 4E DMG for a while again to get ready for a writing assignment. It’s a damn fine book (and no you cannot come over and read it nor will I make a copy and send it to you). The DMG has always been an odd book in my experience. Back in 1E it contained the oddest of tables (and that sweet picture of the paladin in hell that my buddy ending up buying on Ebay a few years ago). Things like the height and weight chart for the various races was in the DMG. There was a chart of random rolls for devil/demon creation and way to much detail on weather. The second edition one followed in those steps as not a really useful book outside of the magic item charts. Monte took over the 3E version and brought it back towards the dark side of the force a little bit but still way to many things that would be needed by the players found there way into the book. The system should be designed so that the players have zero reason to be digging through the DMG or MM at the table. I think 4E has it right finally. This may reduce sales of the DMG as players won’t need it (or at least as much) anymore but I’m all for that for the useful information it contains. I cannot wait until I can talk about the book more as I really think it’s a great book and James did a great job on it.
So my ADD is on medium today so as usual when that happens doing a lot of board and forum reading this afternoon. As anybody who knows me can tell you I hate whining. Don’t mistake this for disliking criticism or just disliking something. I’m a writer and public target. If I could not take criticism then I would not last long doing what I’m doing. If you don’t like me or something then just man up and say it. I fully realize I’m not everybody’s cup of tea and I can live with that. It causes me no lost sleep what-so-ever.
If you don’t like something just say it. Just don’t whine about it.
Three year olds whine. Dogs whine. People have intelligent discussions. 4E is not going to be for everybody. No rocket science there. If there is something you don’t like about it and want to discuss it then rock-n-roll. If you just want to whine ‘it’s not fair’ or ‘I’m going to march around in front of Wotc with my sign as they killed me game’ then just leave me out of the loop. It’s a game people and if a game gets your riled up enough that you’re having trouble keeping food down or feel the need to attack another physically or on a message board then get a grip. I call this people WFM (pronounced ‘Wiff-ums’). It stands for Whining Fucking Maggot (coined by Dennis Leary – visionary of the 90’s). The world is full of WFM’s. Don’t let them keep ya down.
Remember I’m in charge so do what I say
So WOFS golden moment today. We (myself and my two cohorts in crime) get this email this morning.
“Many thanks to each and ALL OF YOU for all of your assistance with the phone, emails and the tax queue that helped to keep this job current for the past six months in spite of your own heavy work loads, our move and changes. And, if I've forgotten to add my thanks for anything else, add that too. It helps considerably to be able to catch it up and then to pick it up to continue forward.
We do not want this to happen again!
Please know that all of your assistance has been and is greatly appreciated.
Most sincerely”
I think normally it goes “each and everyone of you’ not all of you. Not sure what’s up with the caps either. So let me translate this for all of you.
“Many thanks to each and everyone of you stupid suckers for doing my job, answering all the phone calls from people wanting to know why I’m not doing my job, spam emails, and the queue that is my entire job that I cannot keep up for the past six months in spite of the fact you all have your own jobs to do. If I’ve forgotten to thank anybody who has kept me from being fired then piss off. I’ll sue you if you fire me. It helps considerably for you having caught me up so I can do jack and squat for the next month or so before the queue gets so overwhelmed that I can come up with some new sob story so you all have to do my work for me again.
This will happen again. God told me
Fuck off bitches,”
See I bet that makes a lot more sense now that I translated it from pretentious bullshit into actual English.
Schooverizing (V: to shit all over something somebody else has worked very hard on for no other reason then it does not meet your very specific needs at the moment you need them)
My buddy Shawn coined this term. This type of person has a vision in there head of how the world works and how everything should be. In their mind if they did things everything would be perfect and the war in the middle east would be over due to the massive group hug that would surely ensue. Nothing anybody else does will ever live up to the image in their head and they will be very happy to tell everybody else how much what they are reading/watching/or playing sucks a goats ass. This type of person can suck the fun and enjoyment out of any situation. They should be avoided at all costs. My hope is the person this term was coined for will hate 4th edition with a passion and we’ll never see them again. I doubt that will happen as the RPGA and a game table at a show is a pretty captive audience for them to harass without them running off.
So enough for today. I may post again tonight depending on how my daughters dance recital goes. She is doing ballet tonight (and she is 4) so it should be beyond funny to watch.
- Location:Work
- Mood:
annoyed
So no it's not some 1st edition throw back day today (though I may run a 6-7 session 1st edition campaign this summer - that would actually be a lot of fun and show some of the newbs in our group how it used to be).
Dave cannot focus today. My ADD is in full swing and anything (and I mean anything) is distracting me from getting any work done. I have days like that. No matter what I try I just cannot stay on anything longer then a few minutes before I'm off on some random tangent. I can already see some of the same traits in my daughter so I know I'll be fighting the battle to keep her off whatever medicine of the week they are prescribing in elementary school these days. I just cannot see taking medicine that tells you upfront you won't be you when you take it. Whoo hoo sign me up. Perhaps I just need the proper motiviation
Okay maybe not.
So my headphones are not working today. WOFS has been on the phone most of the days with some random person that seems to want to hear about all here whiney ass bullshit. I cannot imagine who that person could be outside of her mother (and even then she's probably praying for alzheimer’s at this point). I don’t know what secret lottery I lost during our move to end up next to her but I guess that’s what I get for being out of town when they picked new offices. I wonder if anybody would notice if I taped sound proof foam from the floor to ceiling by her cubicle. I bet I could convince most of the idiots here that it was blocking out alien mind-control rays if I put my mind to it. Maybe I’ll save that for next month when I get bored again.
Dave cannot focus today. My ADD is in full swing and anything (and I mean anything) is distracting me from getting any work done. I have days like that. No matter what I try I just cannot stay on anything longer then a few minutes before I'm off on some random tangent. I can already see some of the same traits in my daughter so I know I'll be fighting the battle to keep her off whatever medicine of the week they are prescribing in elementary school these days. I just cannot see taking medicine that tells you upfront you won't be you when you take it. Whoo hoo sign me up. Perhaps I just need the proper motiviation
Okay maybe not.
So my headphones are not working today. WOFS has been on the phone most of the days with some random person that seems to want to hear about all here whiney ass bullshit. I cannot imagine who that person could be outside of her mother (and even then she's probably praying for alzheimer’s at this point). I don’t know what secret lottery I lost during our move to end up next to her but I guess that’s what I get for being out of town when they picked new offices. I wonder if anybody would notice if I taped sound proof foam from the floor to ceiling by her cubicle. I bet I could convince most of the idiots here that it was blocking out alien mind-control rays if I put my mind to it. Maybe I’ll save that for next month when I get bored again.
My new space is next to WOFS, across from Slim Shaky, and two down from Duncehead. These three together are known as ‘The Brain Trust (TBT)’. We dubbed them that at Joyce’s retirement party when they all set near her by the gifts. They acted like 4 year olds at a birthday party at each gift and then would try to explain to each other what it was she got after each gift. She got a laptop and I think they thought it some kind of ultra-slim toaster. They were very entertaining and I think if locked in a room with some bubble-wrap and an orange happy fun ball they would be good for at least a week. My buddy here as this weird game called ‘Fuck, Marry, Murder” where you pick three people and have to pick one for each. So of course he springs it on me with TBT. Talk about a pretty impossible task. I know WOFS would get murdered. The happy vibes from that would surely sustain me through the Fuck part but would run out sometime during the Marry part unless a staircase and gravity was in her near future.
Dave’s Rules – have not updated in a while so let’s catch up
#3 – Gravity – Mutual Non-Fucking with Pack in Effect – Gravity. Weakest of the Fundamental Forces of nature but really the mostly likely of the four to fuck with you in the near future. While I’m not afraid of heights I’m also not stupid enough to mess with them. It’s why I have an education and a job so somebody else can be paid to go screw with them. While climbing Everest would be pretty sweet I’m not going to fall that far while simultaneously having the fluids in my body freeze as my nuts open a summer home somewhere in my midsection. Somebody take me a picture while you’re there and email it to me.
#4 – Hot Bitch Factor – No matter how hot a chick is somewhere there is a guy who is tired of putting up with her shit. The exception to this rule might be Salma Hayek
that girl is smoking hot – though I’m sure somebody is tired of her I know somebody who has two thumbs that’s not (THIS GUY!!)
#5 – If M*4/W<1 then Drama – My wife’s work proves this point. If Men times 4 divided by Woman is not greater then one then a vicious drama cycle is the end result. For example in my department at work we have 7 men and 17 woman. That works out to 1.64 so we’re safe. My wife’s department is 18 woman and 2 guys. That works out to .44 so they’re fucked. Once you drop under 1 a cycle of gossip begins to spread and there are not enough men to stomp it into the dirt. It grows and grows until eventually somebody said something about somebody who was at this thing with another who did not think to invite person three and well you know they like it cause the boss of that other lady told you and all of existence grinds to a halt. Woman are screaming at each other and men are ducking for cover. This is usually reset by the boss saying “Get back to work before I replace you all with monkeys” or if the boss if female then it is ended by either a gift exchange at a neutral site with gifts not valued over $12 or a Starbucks gift card. The value of said card determining how long before the next cycle starts. If the workplace is a public function (as is my wife’s) where everybody’s salary is posted in the local newspaper twice a year then multiply everything above by the cube root of a hissy fit.
- Location:Work
- Mood:
amused - Music:Tool
So both my kids are sick. Karli has strep throat again (2nd time this year) and Chase has his first ear infection (which starts us down the path Karli took with her two dozen infections and two sets of ear tubes). Hopefully this is just a fluke for him but it has us a little worried.
It's quiet now. I enjoy my quiet time. The wife and kids are in bed and out like rocks by 9-9:30 most nights. I don't go to bed till midnight or one (I live really close to my job). So I head down into my man cave (den) and enjoy the quiet. The fact it might not actually be quiet (rocking to Korn while blowing up helicopters in Crysis) is not the point. It's not being responsible for anybody but myself for a short little bit of time each day. It's my recharge time. My time to put 'Dad' away and just be Dave and do the self-indulgent things that I want to do.
Tonight I'm trying to see if I can get my neighbors laptop (for his kid whose a junior at Ohio State) up and running. He had some hard drive issues so I have it wired into my one system being scanned twenty different ways for bad sectors, viruses, and just screwed up parts. So far its doing pretty well. Geek Squad wanted over $300 to fix it and really had no clue. I think each store has one guy with an actual idea on fixing things and the rest displace air to meet some secret Best Buy quota. That does make me think on how much air the human race as a whole displaces and if the population continues it's increase what another billion people will due to the weather patterns and such. There has to be some kind of an effect. Just the odd things I think about late at night.
I do have an over and under with my neighbor on how much porn his kid has on his laptop. I told him over 40 video files and 100 pictures and he thinks less. We have a 6-pack on it so we'll keep ya posted.
I need to get a new bookcase for 4th edition. That will kill some wall space I was going to put some artwork on so I'll need to figure out the space issues. I might need to put some books away instead which while I would hate to do I think I can get non-D&D stuff put away and thus keep out the gold (as any who've been to the Man Cave can tell you my collection takes up a lot of space).
I need another flat screen as well. Free up some desk space that the CRT is taking up to my right. Just need to figure out how to get that past my wife. My main is a 24 inch right now that displays 1920x1200 (1080P) but I think a 19-20 would fit nice as the side one.
- Location:Man Cave
- Mood: peaceful
- Music:Pink Floyd
- Location:Work
- Mood: pissed off
- Music:Korn
So happy happy Easter weekend. Everybody knows I am not religious by any stretch of the word but I am well educated on the subject (my mother is an ordained minister after all). So it's always a weird weekend as my wife wants to drag us all out to my mom's service each year. I do so with much respect as I do respect the work my mom does I just don't agree with the reasoning behind it. Doing good things should not be something that is ordained by another or done with a dangling carrot in front of you for some eternal reward (not saying she does it for those reason - my mom's a good egg). I do good things because I myself find them to be rewarding and doing good things to raise the overall level of our society cannot be a bad thing (unless the universe really is just screwing with us and waiting in the corner to take a big cosmic dump on our heads). It's like the ten commandments. Anybody above the social or mental level of a box turtle can look at them and go 'Well Duhhhh. You didn't have to write those down for me to know they make a lot of sense. Nor do you have to threaten my existence from now to the end of eternity to follow them.' I look forward to the day when a persons religion is given the same consideration and power as their selection of beer or the color of their Ipod. May not happen in my lifetime but it's heading that way eventually.
Sick kids. What's better then one sick kid? Why two of course. So never made it to my mom's for Easter but I do have some very large Easter side dishes hogging up my fridge (we were doing them for my whole family for Sunday and I have a big family). I think my daughter is getting Strep again while my son is coughing a lot of when he sneezes green snot shoot out his nose (which is very funny until it hits ya in the face - even so he got points for the good shot). They are both heading in to the doctor's here shortly and I'm sure the prescriptions will once again make my poopshoot tighten up and my teeth grind. Hopefully as they get older they get my immune system and not my wife's. I've been to the doctor (non-emergency room) one time in the past two decades. Even then it was more to make my wife happy then actually needing to go. I think I was over what I had and recovering nicely. I've never broken a bone or had surgery (knock-on-wood). I've had around 100 stitches though and torn a muscle or two. Those heal though.
So I have a facebook account. Was reminded today when a few friends poked me on it. So those that know me will have no trouble finding it. Those that don't just keep reading the rants and don't worry about it man. Updated it with all kinds of cool things (well not really but I think they're cool so stuff it). It also made me realize the genius that is George Carlin. There are people in the world who 'Get It' and George is one of them. Not many do and zero in any kind of position of political power (as 'getting it' tends to go against the grain with the ignorant masses). The next president needs to create a position called 'Secretary of Common Fucking Sense' and George gets a lifetime appointment to it.
Sick kids. What's better then one sick kid? Why two of course. So never made it to my mom's for Easter but I do have some very large Easter side dishes hogging up my fridge (we were doing them for my whole family for Sunday and I have a big family). I think my daughter is getting Strep again while my son is coughing a lot of when he sneezes green snot shoot out his nose (which is very funny until it hits ya in the face - even so he got points for the good shot). They are both heading in to the doctor's here shortly and I'm sure the prescriptions will once again make my poopshoot tighten up and my teeth grind. Hopefully as they get older they get my immune system and not my wife's. I've been to the doctor (non-emergency room) one time in the past two decades. Even then it was more to make my wife happy then actually needing to go. I think I was over what I had and recovering nicely. I've never broken a bone or had surgery (knock-on-wood). I've had around 100 stitches though and torn a muscle or two. Those heal though.
So I have a facebook account. Was reminded today when a few friends poked me on it. So those that know me will have no trouble finding it. Those that don't just keep reading the rants and don't worry about it man. Updated it with all kinds of cool things (well not really but I think they're cool so stuff it). It also made me realize the genius that is George Carlin. There are people in the world who 'Get It' and George is one of them. Not many do and zero in any kind of position of political power (as 'getting it' tends to go against the grain with the ignorant masses). The next president needs to create a position called 'Secretary of Common Fucking Sense' and George gets a lifetime appointment to it.
So I’ve noticed I start most things with the word ‘So’. Once again I thought about changing it but then said screw it. I’m not being graded on this. I am worried about my freelance work coming up and my lack of proper grammar (by any stretch of the word proper). I just don’t care which at times is not a good thing but not caring about everything definitely reduces your stress levels.
- Location:Work
- Mood:awake
- Music:NIN
So I’m in a pretty good mood today so far. My wife hinted that her clothes might fall off by accident tonight after the kids go to bed and I’m taking them all out to dinner (thanks EBay and free cash). So that’s just win-win right there. I have work off tomorrow so I can spend the whole day with my kids and we go home early today. Even WOFS cannot bring me down. Played hoops today and laid down some big guy smack (as I rightfully should do) and my knees don’t hurt to bad (yet).
So was talking to my buddies Erik and Jason about Paisa’s move to 3.75 and holding off on 4th edition. A month ago I would have found that to be a horrible decision for any company basing their products off the OGL but after having a long discussion about OGL/D20 things with Jason a few weeks ago it makes more sense now. I’m still not sure how it will pan out for them but I wish them the best. I know there is enough Wotc haters around right now to sustain it at least for half or year or so but I would really hate to see them become known as the home of those that hate Wotc. That’s a short term gain long term lose imo.
My MIL (mother-in-law) got a haircut a few weeks ago while I was gone. My wife said I had to see it as she thought it reminded her of a character from an Austin Powers movie. Well I saw her last Saturday and she is right. My MIL looks like Fat Bastard. Bowl cut and all. So I’m looking forward to her next visit so I can make endless Austin Power inside jokes with my brother-in-law. I’m sure it will provide weeks of entertainment until she does something so stupid it just pisses me off and ends my fun.
ARGGGG. The phone rang at the ladies desk that sits across from me (we call her Slim Shaky – her hands shake all the time so it’s funny – ya I’m going to hell but I don’t believe in hell so it’s all good). She never answers her phone. She glances over to see who it is and then ignores it. Which hey that’s her gig (I would rather deal with people when they call then play phone tag after a VM) but she has the phone turned up all the way so it drowns everything out. She also has no cubicle etiquette at all. When somebody is obviously working on something or even worse on the phone when you come into their space you wait. Just give them a second to wrap it up or acknowledge you. She just bursts in ignoring what your doing. If on the phone she’ll just start talking or if you are typing she’ll put the paper in-between you and the screen so you cannot ignore it. I’d yell but she’s so old it might give her a heart attack and if she died in my cubicle I think the rules state I’m in charge of disposing of her body (the roof would be a good location or maybe a snow bank).
So speaking of rules I have a lot of them. I always give them random numbers and such and I really need to get them all down into a book or something. So we’ll start hitting one each day and a couple today to catch-up.
Dave’s Rules
#1 – Everybody is somebody’s Bitch – this is a given. Does not matter how powerful or rich you are there is somebody who you yield to. I’ve also found that as you get older you move down and not up on the bitch chart. I starts with your parents. You get free finally and it turns to your job or school. Then you get married and it’s your wife/husband. Then kids (move to the seat to your left please Mr. Christ – thanks). So right now I am somewhere below my wife, two kids, my mortgage, the grass in my yard, my boss at work, and that smell in the fridge that I just cannot seem to find.
#2 – The Greatest hindrance to finding the truth is to assume you already have it – What I know now is so much greater and deeper then what I did 10 years ago or when I graduated (the point where I foolishly believed I knew everything I needed to). Even with that you have to be open-minded enough to still realize you don’t really know shit. I think that’s one of my biggest problems with organized religion. They sell answers and comfort. There is no gray areas in what you’re being told. They tell you the answers to questions that nobody else can in a way that is not open to interpretation. For some this is comforting while for me it’s rather disheartening. The world as a whole will never grow until people start realizing life’s a journey and some answers will never be found on it. I think Kevin Smith said it best in Dogma when Rufus (Chris Rock’s character) said “I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should be malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant.”
So enough for today. I’m in a good mood still and it’s staying that way.
- Mood: rejuvenated
So while I was gone to a new show last month they moved us to a new part of our building (us being my department). So I have a much nicer office with better lighting and heating/cooling. So should be a win/win but of course I end up next to WOFS (see more on her later) and now today under a squeaking fan motor. I've had my headphones cranked up all day to try and drown it out as much as I could. Also our new space puts us about as physically far from any male bathroom as we could be without actually being in the parking lot. There is a ladies right across from my desk so I can watch the bladder challenged go 14 times a day. I should get an extra 30 minutes to play basketball at lunch with how much time some here spend in the bathroom or smoking (we'll rant on smoking another day).
I also realized that I should probably change my picture if I want to remain somewhat hidden but then I also realized that I don't really care so we'll leave it. My kids are damn cute and don't even try to argue that point (now how I made such cute kids is a mystery that is free to be discussed at any time).
So about I said I sit next to WOFS. We talked about her yesterday. I've decided to call her Waste of Fucking Space for short. I like capital letters as it expresses my dislike for this person while saving me some keystrokes every time I rant on her. So two of my co-workers have taken on her job the past few weeks while she was gone and gotten her caught up reasonably to where she should be (light years ahead of where she left herself). So back two days and what has she done ? FUCKING NOTHING. WTF is up with that. Today I caught her rearranging the chairs in front of her desk and then sitting in them to see how the view from them was I guess. We decided not to do an upload today due to only one check being cut (that's our SAP term for passing checks to be issued each night). She has since raised the bar on that lofty number to three. My coworkers would do a dozen a day at least on top of their normal job. Her whole job is doing that and she managed to do one by 3pm and three by the end of the day. How does this person keep a job and cash her paycheck without being charged with theft? I know raises (or the lack of them) will be coming up shortly and with our paste-n-cut system she will end up with the same as me. How is that remotely fair. I'm not saying I'm the model of workplace efficiency by any stretch of the term but I get my shit done and don't piss in peoples coffee (well maybe mini-Hitler's but he enjoys it). Enough about that though. She is not going anywhere (as why leave the place that pays you for breathing and moving slightly more then a plant). I have to wait till she dies or a house falls on her (both would win me $50 in the office pool).
I also realized that I should probably change my picture if I want to remain somewhat hidden but then I also realized that I don't really care so we'll leave it. My kids are damn cute and don't even try to argue that point (now how I made such cute kids is a mystery that is free to be discussed at any time).
So about I said I sit next to WOFS. We talked about her yesterday. I've decided to call her Waste of Fucking Space for short. I like capital letters as it expresses my dislike for this person while saving me some keystrokes every time I rant on her. So two of my co-workers have taken on her job the past few weeks while she was gone and gotten her caught up reasonably to where she should be (light years ahead of where she left herself). So back two days and what has she done ? FUCKING NOTHING. WTF is up with that. Today I caught her rearranging the chairs in front of her desk and then sitting in them to see how the view from them was I guess. We decided not to do an upload today due to only one check being cut (that's our SAP term for passing checks to be issued each night). She has since raised the bar on that lofty number to three. My coworkers would do a dozen a day at least on top of their normal job. Her whole job is doing that and she managed to do one by 3pm and three by the end of the day. How does this person keep a job and cash her paycheck without being charged with theft? I know raises (or the lack of them) will be coming up shortly and with our paste-n-cut system she will end up with the same as me. How is that remotely fair. I'm not saying I'm the model of workplace efficiency by any stretch of the term but I get my shit done and don't piss in peoples coffee (well maybe mini-Hitler's but he enjoys it). Enough about that though. She is not going anywhere (as why leave the place that pays you for breathing and moving slightly more then a plant). I have to wait till she dies or a house falls on her (both would win me $50 in the office pool).
I need to get some extra sleep tonight instead of staying up reading 4th edition books or shooting north Koreans in the head in Crysis (middle of the road AI tactics at times but graphics are just phenomenal). The 9800GTX’s come out the week after next (delayed yet yet again) which do tri-SLI so I might step-up to a pair in SLI and if the SLI scaled like it claims toss a 3rd one in next month. I think my cooling is under control enough to handle that without to many heat issues. Lose my sound card if I go that route and will have to use onboard 5.1 sound but they’ve come a long way on that so I should be okay I think. Will let me roll some parts over into the other two system and maybe get a hard drive server going with all my images and music backed up on (so I can then also share through media center to my Xbox and laptop).
Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of my first date with my wife. We drive each other nuts at times but I love the little gal to death. Her birthday was yesterday so I always call today “Official Middle of Nothing’ day. I think I’ll take her to the place we had our first dinner date at (which was the next day actually but we’re to busy that day to do it). I wonder if I can get Applebee’s to give us the same table (ya I know Applebee’s for a first dinner date (2nd date overall) but I was young and poor. You do what you can with what you got.
I should have called Chris today to get the Origins schedule finalized. I know pretty much the whole thing in my head but it’s nice to get it on paper so we can both agree on it and get some balls moving. We need to get the Gencon one done up as well but I’m guessing since Derek is in his home game he’ll cut us some slack if we’re a little late (and we’ll sell most if not everything out anyway).
- Location:Work
- Mood: annoyed
- Music:Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
So I've been meaning to do this for years but like most things in my life it gets set to the side and next thing you know a few elections have gone by and my kid's telling me to talk to her hand. So finally here I go. Not sure if anybody is going to read this and really that fact is not bothering me one way or the other. I see this as more therapy to get out the screaming noise in my head and bring some order to my thoughts more then entertainment for others. The fact others can read it is just an amusing side affect.
So today I though, as I often do, that I have no clue how I, the King of attention deficit disorder, was ever deemed fit to be in charge of not only one but two other human beings. I have two kids who think I have all the answers. They think I’m some infallible being who can make everything right, knows the location of every place that sells some form of boneless chicken product, and that all dad’s will one day grow up to be my size. All I know is that as more people come into my life I move further and further down the food chain. Right now I think I am slightly ahead of the kitchen table but way behind the remote control (which my 4 year old already knows how to use better then her grandparents).
Today was a semi-decent work day. Nobody got me to pissed off (not pissed off is usually about the best mood I am in at work when not playing basketball at lunchtime, talking to friends on AIM, or talking oh the phone to somebody from Wotc about gaming). The lady that sits next to me came back to work today after being gone for who knows how long (I think mid-February). Her husband has lung cancer from smoking (gee go figure) so she is not here much lately which suits me fine as she drives me fucking nuts. She is a religious bible thumping nutcase who really needs to either wander into traffic drunk on wine from communion or hit hard enough that the parts in her head rattle around and a few tab A’s end up in the right slot so she makes more sense. She does not think dinosaurs ever existed and that the earth is 8,000 years old give or take a bible chapter. I’m normally pretty tolerate and especially so at work (cuz I really like my paycheck) but that’s just fucking nuts. I know I should feel some sympathy towards her about her husband but I just can’t. I’m numb to the whole thing. I by no means want something bad to happen to him (he’s a nut to but I respect his right to be a nut) but if it did it really would not bug me to much. There is no attachment there. I have enough things of importance in my life to worry about without adding things I have zero control over to the list of worries in my head.
I was offered some freelance work last night which has me pretty pumped. Hopefully it pans out. I’ve been wanting to get my hat into that arena for a while now but being the procrastinator that I am (see the start of this wonderful post) just never got around to it. Now I just need to focus and knock some amazing stuff out for them to see if I can truly take things to the next level or if I’m just deluding myself (which is a fun endeavor in and of itself on some occasions).
So I guess that’s good for a first post. I need to figure out how to link to a few other friends I have on this thing so that they can enjoy the random ramblings of my brain on to little sleep and to much caffeine. I need to hit SRM’s blog to rant on Jason some more about his 4th edition crying (thankfully I could find a path to the bathroom in our hotel room that avoided the puddles).
- Location:Work
- Mood: restless
- Music:Korn
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