Memorial Day weekend was nice and relaxing, I got some time to play .hack on our PS2, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I also got a lot of time to spend on Phantasy Star Online, and then we had a great DnD 3rd edition game Sunday Afternoon. Funny though, after the game, which ended at 12:40(playing so late is so indulgent!), my husband and I stayed up till 4:30am. I was keeping him company while he tallied experience and rolled for the super huge treasure cache we had discovered.

I got up Memorial day about 10am, and played PSO and did a load of laundry until we had to head over to Mom’s for a cookout. And OH! What great food. I just about snacked myself to death. And then had half a brat/ half an Italian sausage, and two yummy grilled hot-dogs. We’ve been eating so much Boca products lately, it was almost funny to have so much real meat. We also shredded a bunch of old documents and mail (some of them 3+ years old) and scanned the picture of Khaira I drew on Sunday.

Tuesday night, my husband and I went over to Tammy’s to work on her character for our new girly-gaming game, which will start next Tuesday, and incorporate my tiefling Mohna, with Tammy’s Rashamen Wizard, and a halfling fighter for Tammy’s friend Liz (who has never played before). I’m sure it’s going to be a lot of fun. My last girly-gaming group kinda lost the other women, due things like boot-camp, moving , lack of interest. The game continued though, and is our current Sunday afternoon game with Vole. So that’s neat, I’ve been playing with my Gnomish Rogue for about a year now.

Anyway, Tammy made these awesome enchiladas, and salad, and we had yummy strawberries and angel food for desert. She has this kick butt loft apartment too, with a super high ceiling and tall windows in the front area. She showed off her Xena game cards, and picked some music out she thought I’d like. It was sweet of her to drop by my web page to see what I’m into. Very cool.

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!

Before this weekend begins, I want to recount how awesome last weekend was!

Friday night was leo-list book reading and Buffy over at the Smuga-Otto’s's, which is always a treat, full of tea, laughter and geekiness. We watched the Christmas episode with Angel and the First. Good ‘homework’ for the current season. And then since they still had their Christmas tree up, we set up the camera for a ‘family picture’ heh, so fun.

Saturday was so amazing. Remember last weekend, my Mother in Law came by to help us set up our new hutch?! Well this weekend, my Mother came by to help me organize my kitchen, and work on putting our new place to rights.

She came by about 10:30, and we wrote down a list of some organizing things we’d need, like laundry baskets, more kitchen cloths, little shelves for the cupboards, and then ran to Wal-Mart to get all of those, plus some pillows and a bedspread for the guest room downstairs.

Then we came back and unpacked all the dishes and pots and glasses that had been sitting under our long table up against the kitchen bar, about 8 boxes containing pans and plastic containers and all sorts of things that my husband and I hadn’t figured out where to put. My mother marveled at all the space we had in the kitchen, and had so many great ideas of where things should logically go. It’s still tough with only one drawer(which the silverware occupies), but with her help and advice we found places for pretty much everything. And I kept going downstairs for some more kitcheny things. Wow! A fully organized kitchen!

Somewhere in here, Carlo brought us some Quizno’s subs (yummy) and we sat down for some soda, salt and vinegar chips and chatted about what was needed for the basement. Then my husband got a call that the Mopar club he is president of was having their party that night, and not next week like he’d thought. So we went into cleaning mode, and finished cleaning the kitchen, I cleaned the bathroom, and my mother, bless her, cleaned our floors in the kitchen and bathroom, while my husband vacuumed.

Then, while the Mopar people came over, we retreated to the basement, to work on the guest room, laundry room, and the main room full of many boxes from our move.

We made the bed with a burgundy bedspread, put pillowcases on the new pillows we bought earlier that day, and set up the cute little side lamp table we still need to make a cover for. It almost looks like a proper guest room now. I put in an alarm clock, and plugged in a phone.

I organized the laundry room with the new baskets, (laundry clean and dirty was everywhere, we had moved it from the main room to the laundry clean and dirty-so hard to tell after a big move), and my mom poked through our boxes.

Finally, wow, after about 9 hours of work, (fun work), we stopped, sore and happy with so much accomplished. We didn’t clear the basement of boxes, but we did manage to clear the area in front of the steps (visible from the front door), so it doesn’t look like a garage sale from the door anymore. Without going downstairs you’d just see the blue couch and a lamp, with the big brass candlestick holders behind on the little ledge that runs the perimeter of our basement.

We grabbed some trays and ate good sandwich meat sandwiches downstairs on folding chairs, while we shivered. (Our fireplace downstairs doesn’t work, the pilot is lit, but it doesn’t ignite) Then I showed my mom Dance Dance Revolution on our new PS1(got a certificate from work for Sears for Christmas, ps1′s are cheap now!), even though my legs and feet were terribly sore. She thought it looked like fun.

It was a lot of work, but wow, makes you feel like you really made your weekend count.
~~
Sunday Chris brought over his GameCube and wavebird, to sell to us for the price of a couple games he’d been wanting. We had snagged a used copy of Animal Crossing at Blockbuster, and he stayed to watch me set up and giggle over Tom Nook’s wiggly nose.

Name:Iris
Town:Bliss

And I played that most of the day. The Wavebird rocks. It’s soo cute, snow everywhere, lots of silly animals, and lots to do. I managed to pay off my first debt to Nook before Carlo came home, and Jaz and Eric showed up for some gaming.

Before the game Jaz and I played a bit of MonkeyBall2, which looks like more fun than the first, even if it makes me a tad seasick for the normal levels, lots of sense of depth and speed. Also popped in Resident Evil, looks very nice, though the stutter in loading the cinema’s is very annoying. (I can tell you though, for the most part, AC hasn’t left the cube since I got it)

The game went long, but was fun, as Eric, Jaz and I (plus npcs) defeated not only the zombies, but also many swamp bandits riding huge wasps. I think I need to drop this wand of magic missile though, powerful yes, cramping my rogue’s style though.

Went to bed happy, got lots accomplished for the whole weekend, and now I can find things in my kitchen, yah!

Whew! no wonder it took me all week to get this written.

Xbox live is soo cool, I tracked my package around all day, and it arrived shortly after I got home last night. After a fiasco of trying to figure out why our cable modem only seems to work downstairs, we hooked the whole mess together downstairs.

The signon was pretty painless, the worst part was putting in billing info for any premium downloadable content I may want to buy in the future. And then, woo, I was online, with my xbox. The voice communicator/headset is very cool. I was talking with people from Georgia, Chicago, Arizona, all over. The whacked demo is more fun than I thought it’d be, and the MotoGP demo is awesome. We have the full game so I can choose all the tracks to play on. (Except the 2 I haven’t unlocked yet). Both games are much more fun when people talk, laugh, apologize and generally have a good time. Full 16 people for the races is amazing, people crashing all over the place, in the race you get to talk to people in front and behind you, and the person you crashed into. If you just can’t catch up/overcome a racer, you’ve got a chat buddy for the race. I fell in with a good crew for several races and added some people to my friends list. Very cool stuff.

The games where people aren’t talking aren’t as much fun. Especially if you occasionally hear them breathing, and they won’t respond to your questions. Only ran into one jerk who wouldn’t stop talking, and being annoying, but the other 3 people in the whacked game ganged up on him, threatening to report him for poor conduct, and he logged out of our game.

wheee! very cool. This is just going to be an amazing service.

Let me tell you what is really scary! The box village in our basement.

Last night was the LAST NIGHT of moving, we were up past one in the morning but its all moved, it’s all done. And clean. Husband going over for a bit more vacuuming today, but today, at noon, we sever ties with the old apartment, Yahoo! My mother in law is amazing, spent her whole night finishing cleaning out our kitchen, while I scoured the bathrooms.

Now the terror is trying to make things semi-presentable for tomorrow night, our Haloween Party.

Holy cow. I’m tired.

People don’t really dress up for Halloween here at work. I’d have worn a wig or something, if I could have found anything this morning. I am wearing pumpkin earrings. Honestly, I’m so tired, I don’t know how much more I could have pulled together for today. Still, kinda sadlike about not having something fun to wear to work. Surprising lack of general candyness too, though that’s prolly best for me. There will be more than enough goodies tomorrow night.

Must get the brain ready for tomorrow.

~~~

I ordered my Xbox LIVE beta kit this morning before work, by next week, wheee, I’ll be online with mah Xbox! Here is my tracking number, if you want to play along!

Also, speaking of following along, I added several may and june entries from private hidden place back into Questing. Many of them dealt with interviews and such, so they weren’t posted here during that whole find a job process.
1Z5207W91246899278
~~~

Busy weekend planned, Haloween party friday, Lunch and football on the tell with mother in law on saturday, Kung fu party saturday night woo, and Nanowrimo Madison Kick off party on Sunday. There are over 9500 people doing nanowrimo this year, crazy, can we break the 10k? that would double last year’s participants and be crazy. Today is your last day to sign up, so GO! DO! Write!

My husband picked up Blinx: The Timesweeper for me last night.
Apparently a great deal after my 25$ certificate from my birthday and trading in max payne and azurik. Something like 2 or 3 dollars, nice!

It’s a really interesting game, not really a straight platformer, and that makes you think. Sure, there is some jumping, dodging and shooting, but those time elements really mix things up. Have to be careful where you step or you might pick up the wrong time crystal, and you have to think about areas that might need special attention time wise, rewind, or pause might be the only way to get to that special cat icon.

The graphics are beautiful, especially once you get to the third set of levels in the caves, with shimmery lighting bouncing off of the walls and all items. I’m not sure if its the graphics alone or the combination with music, but the game seems very japanese.

I also really like the water effects, especially when you can pause and you go through it like jello, leaving a cat sized track, and when your pause runs out, the water rushes back to normal making big waves from the peaks. Very cool.

I don’t quite understand why the current time sweeper I have is an improvement over the previous one, but at least I have plenty of places to go back to to gather more gold.

Bonus tip: Try to keep some trash for the goal, you get trade in gold. Some items are better than others, the question mark balls can fetch at least 100g while most random trash is 1g-60g.

Overall though, I’m happy with the game, it’s nice to have something completely different to play.

Wow, the weekend went so fast, just whooshed right by.

Lesse, we played lotsa Xbox, had a good number of people over to fight and race. We did some light cleaning, and bought new cleaning supplies. Am I the only one who thinks new cleaning supplies are fun? Not so much fun after they are not new anymore, but we got to put new hockey pucks of bleach in our toilets, and for some insane reason, that made me happy, well that and having both bathrooms be clean at the same time.

On Sunday I got to see Harry potter, Nancy was in town, and we caught the matinee, which was fun, not as good as the book, but very true, and! I finally met Zara! yah, even though we couldn’t connect until after the movie was over. We’ll have to have her and Nate over for some good clean xbox’n fun.

I am having trouble breathing, seems I’ve been ambushed by a cold. bleh, and work has slowed considerable, pushing the launch of the redesign off to an unknown date. I wonder if I’m destined to be thwarted at trying to launch the site, eternally.

oooh, sleepies would be nice right now, curled up in bed with all my pillows. Whew, do I have writing to do, practically all of last week was a bust, writing wise, but, I figured out last night that If I do about 3000 a day, I can still make goal by the 30th, barring any further distractions. I will finish this challenge…

we were up playing with our new toy last night, till 1!!!

DOA3 is sooo sweet.
My husband is such a sweetie too, he greeted me at the door last night was was incredibly cute and cuddly, showing me the condolences basket work had sent, with neat little shortbread cookies, teas, and chocolate tools like the ones my company sells.

I asked him how his day was, and he said ‘intresting’, i asked what happened, and he, shyly, said ‘nothing’.

‘Then why was it intrestin…’ I said as I turned around from facing him and the counter to the tv set. There, on the floor was the xbox box, with the extra controller, and the 2 games.

‘Merry Christmas,’ he said, as I squealed.

Guess what!!!

YIPPEEE!!!
My husband is a complete sneak! he snuck out to best buy and grabbed us a system and 2 games! And kept it secret for 3 hours!

It’s soo cool, so much goodness all in one package, DOA3 is beautiful, and fast! 60 frames per second, and you can race with your own music in gotham street racing! it burns mp3′s off your own cd’s wow!

Whoo! I passed the 5000 mark last night, I was a bit worried, because I only got about 500 words on friday, bringing my total then to about 2700. I just got in the zone I guess last night, and wrote till about 1:20 or so.

Friday night we went to Monster’s Inc with Ace and Jess It was sooo good. I’d had a tough couple days at work, and this movie wiped all the frustration away. It was genuinly fun, and creative, and the graphics were astounding. The trailers in no way do this movie justice. GO SEE IT!

Saturday we went over to Jaz’s to game, took us a while to get started, because my husband was supposed to run the game, but he’s been sick and has practically lost his voice. That’s no good for a GM. We all had a relaxing afternoon, talking about gaming, and dynamics and what we like in a good role playing game. We took a trip to westfield comics, where I picked up three more Gloomcookie comics, and the first I feel sick comic, which has a really cute style, and had me giggling quite a bit.

We did get to play a fun pick up V&V game, courtesy of Tony and the group worked really well together, plus Jon as Thorn was soo in the groove! It was a lot of fun.

And then, well, I came home and wrote lots! yah! I made the minimum for yesterday night, (min was 5001) though I wanted to be at 6000, that’s ok though, that means I only have to play makeup with 1000 words today, plus, the 2000 I want to write today.

And I’ll be meeting with other Wrimos at JT Whitneys today around 3 or so, so that should be fun, and perhaps I’ll get a bit more written, in good company, woo!

I feel so accomplished! Plus, I’ve decided I’m going to do crunches every night this month, I’ve done that before, years ago, and I know I start to see a difference even after 2 weeks! I figure, I can spend 2 hours writing a day, >10min of crunches will not kill me. Plus, I’ve done them so far every day this month. It’s so nice to wake up everyday with a little bit more accomplished. Makes me feel like the evenings weren’t wasted or anything!

My main character met Bringwel the bear last night, so did I.