Last night Carlo Doug and I went to Pegasus games. Doug bought some more GeneStealers and I picked up a can of primer for my Sisters of Battle I got last weekend.

Then we grabbed some wonderful Fajita Ranchera’s from Qdoba’s and headed home for a triumphant Space Hulk game. Doug and I were the Marines, and my husband played the GeneStealers(aliens).

Riding home in the back seat of Doug’s car, eating my lime sprayed tortilla chips, I had one of those wonderful relaxing moments where I just was. It was really nice, relaxed, munchin on my favorite chips, ready to get home to where Carlo had already set up the board to play.

The game was fantastic. We lost Doug’s powersword Sgt, and my lightning claw, and 3 marines, but overall we were successful. I regret losing Frank, who held off many many of the brood from a key entry point, perhaps as more than 12, and made it possible for most everyone to get back to the space shuttle. Also a valiant loss was Ty, who held the line right in front of the shuttle, falling to the brood while keeping the rest of the crew safe to exit.

The game was a bit hard on the GeneStealers, I kept rolling sixes all over the place.

>for those not in the know< Space Hulk is a like a board game, your pieces are painted miniatures, some plastic, some pewter. Space Hulk itself plays a lot like the movie Aliens, with lots of creepy aliens lurking about, and a small crew of marines on a playing board made up of little cardboard pieces that interlock like a puzzle, but can be connected in lots of different configurations so you can keep the game fresh and new.

Sisters of Battle are Warhammer 40k miniatures, something like battle nuns, but they don’t make female space marines… Warhammer often employees whole armies of miniatures, and measuring distances and such. Space Hulk is a simpler game than 40k, but still a whole lot of fun.

So, once I get them primed and painted, I’ll be able to use them instead of the marines. They are a bit intricate, I hope I can paint them well.

We modified the gun jamming rule for overwatch, which used to state that you roll two 6 sided dice for a gun, a 6 kills a genestealer, and doubles of anything will jam your gun, though double 6’s will kill the creature and jam your gun. We changed that to jamming just on double 1’s. It’s a lot of fun this way, less annoying jamming, more shooting. It’s not like there are a lack of genestealers, they just keep coming, 1-6 randomly each turn at one entry point.

Anyhoo, the game finished just before 1:00. whew!

I went to my first Bardic madness last weekend.
It was a bit bewildering. Most of my discomfort came from being half a day late to the event, and not paying in advance to secure myself a feast spot.

So it kinda felt like I missed out on a major part of the evening too. The feast looked and smelled wonderful, and was several courses of yummy food made by people cooking periodish recipies.

I didn’t know a lot of people, a lot of people were busy with the event, getting their things ready to perform. Others were busy being royals. It’s not that I was being ignored, it’s just that soo much was going on, it was hard to really connect with anyone.

I ended up going out to subway with some bards from Canada which was nice, and funny. Be-garbed and eating our subs in small town Dodgeville Subway Shop that was pretty much empty. We talked a little about the differences between here and there and their fourteen hour trip to get to the event. One of them taught me a new juggling pattern, a tennis pattern where two balls go under and the third gets tossed over and back on the outside.



I had hoped more people would have brought juggling things to do, practice, learn, but I was the only one who had. It gave me something to do, and a good place to start conversations, so I’m glad I brought them.

I did get to see some really cool bardic challenges, the spring song one had some great ones. I was especially struck by a song called ‘The Ballade of the Blue Rose’ which Alexander de Seton performed. It was really amazing. I’m trying to get
lyrics/music for it, because I really want to make it mine, you know internally.

I was really impressed by a harper who played several times, once playing two harps at once! Her name is Ariana the Harper, and I got to chat with her a bit, she’s based outta the cities, and said perhaps next year we could co-ordinate a duet in which I could juggle while she played an actual juggling tune. I think that would be really nice, need to brush up on my tricks though.



I was impressed by the wonderfully talented people all around, got to see many songs and performances, and it was great to see so many people in garb and having a wonderful time. It was too bad I came so late and missed the interesting challenges I wanted to see, specifically tanglebox and sonnets, and most of the classes. I did manage to get to Chandler’s Flirting class, which was fun, and relaxing. But… half an event is better than none, I completely missed Bardic Madness last year, and I’m glad I got to go.

I went home for a nap before the event closed up and showed up at the post-revel around midnight in town, again too late.
No space for me in the main room where the more informal singing was going on.



Buut, the Baron and I drank mead, and talked and ate yummy food. Eventually, some people went home and I got to sit on a couch and listen and sing along, which was fun. One established bard got up and told a tale of a car that overheated
…bizarrely(sp?), which was a hoot, involving a car that had practically. And several other nice things. I thought at times I might sing, but resisted enough, and it was late so things were really winding down. I sang at the last post-revel, so it’s not that I’m too shy. Though I wonder if , ‘I am the Wind’ , is appropriate… I wrote it, but it no way period, though less glaring than ‘Oh Yes’, which really has more of a musical place in big band…



So, there you go, my first Bardic Madness.



On the same subject, http://www.chivalry.com/cantaria/ is a really cool site, has lots of bardsy music and mp3’s of some of the songs! Very cool.

Was last weekend a dream? It seems far to amazing and enjoyable to be true.

Friday night, after a brief nap, was Buffy and Book reading over at the Smuga-otto’s, which is always enjoyable, but seemed even more wonderful for some reason. The mulled wine might have had something to do with it, but I think it was more likely the warmth of friendship and casual hijinks that made the night feel like a holiday celebration. The Kage Baker story of the night involved a holographic Will Shakespeare, and was very humorous. I really need to start picking up some of those books, or borrowing them as the case may be, after of course, I finish 100 years of Solitude. Um, back to the night… There was tasty tea, cute little snacks and lots of people, a full house! Then we watched the new Buffy on the new flat screen TV, and that was quite enjoyable as well.

After Buffy, or was it before, we were treated to two vocal masterpieces, the first about shaking piggies so they pee on the blanket and not on the floor, and also an amazing rendition of The Dog Park song. Throw in a conversation about breeding schedules, and the whole room laughed for twenty minutes straight, I could hardly breathe, and had tears starting in my eyes.

People settled down well enough to gather coats and hats to brave the cold on their way home. I managed to get escorted out the door with the latest ‘Peach Girl’ (go Kiley) after a glimpse of a beautiful new anime called Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou.

Saturday, I slept in way late, to make up for the whole last week of getting to bed after 1:00. After waking, we did some light cleaning in anticipation of guests for this week, and I chatted a bit on the phone with my Mom, who was on her way to the store. Then we had a wonderful dinner with my Mother-In-Law(who had just come back from the same store where she saw my Mother) After dinner we all hung out for a while after in two sets of comfy reclining chairs. Carlo showed Les how to play Starcraft on the laptop, and showed his Mom some of the freelance sites he’d made in the last year or so. It was very nice to chat with her as well, I love the woman!

Sunday was crazy! Late brunch with Jon and Maria at The Great Dane’s new, beautiful location in Fitchburg. The brunch was yummy yummy, and a nice change of pace, very few places are offering Sunday Brunch these days.

It was great to see Maria, even though her husband couldn’t make it, and nice to see Jon and hear about his rather large terrier, Molly. (They had both come from the Dog Park) We talked work stuff, and more dog stuff about our possible doggie, and then headed home.

I took another short nap and then a knock at the door. Brian and Sarah showed up and hung out for an hour or so while waiting for her brother to get back into town. We played Dead or Alive Volleyball, and chatted a bit. It was good to see them, but they had to go, and I was heading out too.

Andy’s birthday tea party! It took me a bit to find her place, I knew the general area, but the sun had set by the time I got out there, and I couldn’t see house numbers, I ended up circling around until, almost a lark, I saw the Smuga-Otto’s distintictive license plate, and pulled in. Then, a brief look into some windows, and I saw Maciek, ah, found the place.

The Party was amazing, the kitchen and dining room full of amazing people from several walks of life surrounded by food, plants, an orange tree and lots of different conversations. Scientists, artists, writers, techies, all in one kitchen, whee. I met a girl name Roz, from the UK, finishing her PhD in monkey studies, something to do with hormones that make the papa monkeys act like papas.

Almost all available surfaces were covered with varied delights, shortbread cookies, cheese and bread, smoked salmon, sushi, several kinds of cake. Mike made a chocolate mousse cake that contained no flour at all, just eggs, sugar, chocolate mostly, and topped with hand whipped cream it was so divine!

I got to chat with the Bill and Merilee(sp?) about Contra dancing, and the orchestra they had at one last week. It was nice to seethe rest of the book reading group at a different place, though some of their paths crossed leaving and arriving due to other obligations. They, aside from Andy, were the only ones I knew from before the party, but everyone there seemed very happy to converse about a number or things.

Whew, it was such a kaleidoscope of happy people; several times I just had to pause to take it all in. I could at times, hear phrases from four or five different conversations around me, art, news, food, underwater gardening. Crazy, I thought these kind of parties only happened in movies. Andy looked very happy. I think everything came out the way she wanted, too.

So, wow, what a weekend. I look forward to many more like it, in any combination. This tiny paragraph doesn’t really convey the joy that this weekend gave me. Thanks to all involved.

We had a wonderful Art night last night at the Smuga-Ottos’, Ray came by and worked with Zbrush, smuga_otto worked on some neat ‘chosen one’ story treatments, and Maciek made some great progress on panels for DnT.



And I? I actually completed a full pencil sketch of an idea I’ve been carrying around in my head for a couple months, and made a quick sketch of yesterday on a scrap piece of printer paper. It’s really different than my usual style, has no elves and is based on GNE prototype. It even has a kyooot round chicken. heh. Unfortunately, the rest of the crew had to listen to me yammer on about how fun it was to activate the new economy, make genomes, and squeeze the chicken, *pop* out pops and egg, out pops an egg, poor chicken, the chicken grows back.



Even now I am casting forlorn glances at my sketchbook, yearning to ink and color the sketch! Must scan first… Or I guess I could trace for refinement. It’s the first serious piece I’ve done all year, and even has a background, a non facing forward pose, and evokes a ‘cute’ response. I think it shows a lot of progress in comparison to most everything up on Metahari.com. I haven’t put anything new up on Mhari since before last semester. eek! It’s so frustrating to not have enough up there to be proud of. Hope to make some changes this year.



I love art night, it’s nice to go to a place where everyone is concentrating on being creative, I think it rubs off, and keeps one focused. Maciek knows of a life drawing course downtowne in March, I really wanna go, we’ll see how finances pan out by then, it’s only one night a week, and I’ve never been to one. I soo want the practice. Plus it’d be fun to be in class with Maciek again, we had a blast in our drawing course.



Speaking of drawing, I’m still dying for a drawing desk, I got so spoiled by using even the old and battered ones at MATC, now, using tray tables just isn’t the same. I think I might be more productive/creative if I could carve out a space for drawing, maybe near a wall where I could post reference pics, turn on the radio and focus. I really don’t see cupid bringing it, he doesn’t really have the cargo space that Santa has.



We’re having a slew of people from outta town next week visit us for the Chicago car show, and general fun. That means this weekend is likely a clean-a-thon, whooo whoo.



Ah, narrative breaking down, that’s what I get for going to bed at 1:30 two nights in a row, and up at 6:45 to start getting ready for work. I’m determined to drink 3 glasses of water before I resort to caffeine. I foresee a nap in my future!



Yah, Friday!!!