Random Dialogue

Refocusing on the books I have to read has been really good. After all of the heavy texts I was reading, I needed some time to read pap, play video games, and watch TV, but I have greatly enjoyed getting back into real books.

The book I’m going to be finishing up this week is I’m a Stranger Here Myself, a book by Bill Bryson. This gentleman is an American who moved as a young child to England, and has come back to the US in his early thirties. It’s really refreshing to read about the stuff he likes (and dislikes) about my country, and the unique outlook that he has on the nation I live in. A review will be available when I finish.

Speaking of reviews, I’ve been fleshing out an outline for my first review for MMORPGDot. The game that I have been playing took a little while to warm up to, but now that I’ve figured things out a bit, it has it’s moments. Part of that, I think, comes from knowing I won’t be playing this for especially long, and that I don’t have to pay for it. Just the same, it’ll be fun to review.

Here is a sample from that big stack of books I mentioned last week:

Dungeons and Dreamers

Masterwork Maps : Inns and Taverns

QuickSilver

John Adams

So, the LAN Party was pretty fun. Everyone’s getting old, so the fraggage was only about 6 or 7 hours in length, but I still had a blast.

We started the evening with some free-for-all deathmatching in UT2003, at which, despite my rustiness, I remain the most accomplished.

After a few rounds of that, we picked teams and switched to some CTF. I am not a very good CTF player. The most I can manage there is flag running, so that’s what I did. The maps were somewhat variable in goodness for the size of our group, but all in all things went well. Both teams were pretty evenly matched, and we scored back and forth fairly frequently.

We took a short break while everyone installed Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and then gave that a go. The first map we did was an interesting symetrical one that involved tagging all the flags on the map to win. After a few rounds of that, we dropped the pretense, and just played the real RtCW level: The Beach. We probably stormed/defended Normandy for a good hour and a half before taking another break for pizza.

After that we returned to UT for a bit more CTF, and some interesting variants called Mutant and Invasion. I got a bit FPS-ed out at this point, and played a couple quick humans vs. computers games of StarCraft with two other folks. After getting our asses handed to us a few times, the three of us, playing protoss/protoss/zerg defeated a force of protoss/terran/terran handily, and called it a night.

Last night’s Shadowrun session was better than last weeks, as I felt a little more on the ball and folks seemed less uncertain of what’s going on. We still need to get into the groove, but things are going well. Huzzah!

Today I’m getting a check-up. I wouldn’t mention it, except it’s the first one that I’ve had in something like 6 years. Hooray for Health Insurance!

Hey!

I’m logging this from Jeff’s basement, at about 6 pm. We’ve been fragging each other silly since about 3pm or so. It’s been great. We’ve got about 12-13 people here, and the action is deeee-licious.

Score!

I enjoyed the quiet last night. Very relaxing.

Been pretty productive yesterday and today (now that the ding-dang server is up…), so that’s good.

Go read Salon. It’s a really great news magazine. Unfortunately, some of the most compelling articles right now are about the hard facts of life surrounding the economy these days.

In between our gigs, we continue our search for anything better, the elusive job that will surely save us. I scan the papers and job Web sites and send out new résumés with the euphemism “customer service skills.” Every evening after the children are in bed, Andrew starts his second job — looking for work. It makes sense that I would have trouble finding gainful labor in a down economy when I was in direct competition with folks much better suited to the positions available, where being a stay-at-home mother had kept me out of the marketplace. But that doesn’t apply to my husband. He was in the midst of a well-connected, cutting-edge world, in the eye of the technology maelstrom and then suddenly he wasn’t. It’s like watching someone try to get back on a wave when the sea has gone eerily calm, horrifyingly silent.

I am so, so, so grateful to be where I am.

Tomorrow I’m helping to host a LAN party at a friend’s house. Should be most fun. (another thing I’m very grateful to be able to do…) Hope to see some of you humans there!

It’s my birthday! Happy birthday to me!

I am now 23 years of age, and I’m not dead yet.

Spent pretty much all evening last night playing Alan and Aaron’s beta version of “Dungeoncrawl”. High excitement, and my Healer is now lvl. 3!

Tonight should be dead quiet. I have to work late, and Katie and Brian will be working this evening so I’ll be by myself when I do get home.

I’ll be okay with that. I have some stuff I’m a doin’, and there are a metric ton of books I want to get through. I’ll throw the list of books I need to read up here tonight, probably, so you can get a grip on the scope of my problem.

Ben’s notes from the cormyr game are now up, in a very rough un-spellchecked form. Enjoy, if you like long narratives.

I’m leaving work in about 15 minutes to pick up Kat, to head to Chicago, where we shall be LARPing it up tonight. Last year was a pretty spectacular failure for our team, but I’m thinking that this year will go better now that I have more of an idea what to expect. I’m also mostly playing with people that I don’t know, so that should actually be a big help.

The website has details about the LARP, should you be interested. I am playing Pentiwa (the Hopi Religious Leader), should you be curious.

I’ll let you know how it goes, and probably do a write-up on it. Wish me luck!

It’s a wednesday…..a wednesday full of the weird.

I’m evidently not going to get the work that I really need to get done even started today, because the Test system is down. Again. Gaah.

Last night’s dinner was quite fun. Got several pieces of loot, and much family/friend warm fuzzies.

As per usual, my birthday week is just shaping up to be weird.

Go check out this history of MMOGs, before I forget. Go on…