dmoonfire

I’m pretty much done with Castle Age over on Facebook. The game ended up being a nice distraction for a month or so, but eventually the lack of variance (grinding) and overwhelming advertising overcame my interest in the game. In the last week or so, I was just playing for the sake of playing the game.

So, I gave up on the game.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

There is a reason I don’t play most computer games after a few weeks. Yeah, I’ll finish a long-running RPG game to finish it, but casual games seem to only interest me for a few days or weeks before I get this strange feeling that I’m wasting my life playing them. Right now, it’s Castle Age on Facebook; a lovely, fun game that I know doesn’t have the depth to keep me interested for years, but it is enough for a distraction while working on my paper. The more I slog through the words, the more I need little breaks of mindless implied violence.

When I’m watching TV, playing games, or even reading a book, I keep thinking I’m wasting my life just doing them instead of creating something. One reason I bring my notebook just about everywhere (even places like business lunches). It gets me anxious since I like, no I’d have to say love, making things. I like writing programs and stories, creating something for an RPG game, or even just making up a shared fiction with someone (wrote two novel length books from email “campaigns”).

But, I don’t get that when I work on college homework. I don’t feel like I’m creating anything. I’m just digesting and writing out papers, but it really doesn’t… make anything at the this level. Probably one reason I’m so anxious for it to be over. I want to make something, I want to feel the keys beneath my finger and have those age-old whining about “I can’t create anything” while writing. (I am so emo.)

I wrote a short story last week, first in a while. Took me a few days, but I got it out. I posted it on the forum that I normally post these stories and… nothing. I wondered if I somehow completely lost the ability to write, but after posted it in a few more places, I started getting comments. I love comments. Almost as much as fan art, but it reminded me of that little thrill of seeing someone else enjoy something I created.

I won’t answer the game writing verses novel question any time soon, but I know that I’m anxious to get to creating things once I finish my college classes. Like other major life decisions, I find myself counting the days.

Sadly, while clicking on the quest button in Castle Age.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Occasionally, I find a game on Facebook that looks interesting, but I usually drifted after 3-5 days. Spore Island happens to be one of them. I like the idea of Spore, creating your own creatures and seeing them survive, but Spore Island really didn’t appeal to me past a few days.

Facebook games pretty much have the feel to them. Between the gameplay, there is that near constant drone of “bring more players into the game!” Some of them are a little better than others, while others are just terrible at it. Spore Islands goes one additional step. Most of the customizations in the game, you can never get unless you hand cold hard cash over to them. You use DNA points to “improve” your character. Well, not really improve. You can shift around scores to try getting a higher point value, but ultimately, there is no improvement in the game. Just shifting over time as supposedly your friends do the same. Because everyone likes to just beat on their friends endlessly. You can’t ever get more than 12 DNA (one every two hours) and most of the cosmetic benefits cost 15 DNA or more. So, if you want something nice, you have no choice but to pay for it.

There are very little benefits of friends. The game gives a higher chance of sparkles (bonus points) on the stage based on the number of friends, but those bonus points only dictate which of 12 options you have and the number of other creatures you can have. You can only put the secondary creatures on your friend’s island, so basically is just to get some minor bonuses to be better than your friends.

I can’t say there is really much I liked about the game. Creating monsters is fun, but they are so bland that you really don’t get an emotional attachment to them. And they change shape and size as you evolve them (just pushing points around), so it doesn’t really matter what you pick in the beginning, it will probably change.

Game play is pretty simple also. Click Observe, wait 120 second. Shift things around, rinse, lather, and repeat. Um… yah? In four hours, you can do it again!

There isn’t any gifting in the game, other than planting your creature on a friend’s island. Not exactly exciting and doesn’t encourage the social gaming that others do. I can easily see why Fluffy and my other friends pretty much dropped it after a few days.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

When I got home from work yesterday, I had two packages waiting for me. One was a new keyboard and SATA cable for my computer. I just replaced the DVD burner and found out I grabbed the wrong type (SATA instead of IDE). Instead of trying to return it, I just got the cables needed to set it up (I already had a SATA system) and just plugged it in. The other is the keyboard. I utterly hate keyboard shopping. I know it sounds strange, but after so many years of touch-typing both for writing and programming, I’m very sensitive to keyboard layouts. I struggle without the inverted-T for cursor keys, the 2R3C layout for the home keys and even the location of the backslash character. And I don’t like curved, split, or funny shapes either. Picky, but it makes it really hard to get a good keyboard.

The other is the thing I’ve been waiting for since GenCon: HERO 6E. HERO is the reason I dropped my home-brew systems (Balance and Triumph). Yes, it has some complexity, but it is a great generic system that shares my tenants of gaming. There are very few absolutes (probably the main reason I get frustrated with Exalted is there are too many perfects). It is also flexible. Yes, the numbers sometimes get hard for things like dimensional spaces, but I find that it works for almost every genre I happen to enjoy. Plus, I could easily run other worlds in it, like Fighterytpe’s Itrifore, my Fedran, or even Fluffy’s favorite: a cheerful Changeling game.

While I love HERO, there is something to be said about actually playing a game. I haven’t tried to really find a gaming group here in Iowa since I moved here. College, writing, and barely seeing Fluffy have put a pallor on that, but today, I’m going down to Critical Hits and hopefully doing a round or two of Pathfinder Society games. It is more structured than I really am used to. Most of my life, I’ve played home games with campaigns that lasted years with the same characters. And having all that history built up between the characters. With RPGA and Society games, I don’t get the same impression. It is more like a delve and go on, episodic television instead of integrated plots. You know, the difference between Star Trek verses Babylon 5. I like both, but there is that master plot in B5 that Star Trek just didn’t have. And I feel the same about this game.

But, a game is a game and I want to roll some dice and have some fun.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

In the last week or so, I found a gaming group that is semi-local to let me at least fill some of my RPG cravings. They play Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons 4e. Not really into 4e, just goes a bit too far into tactical for my own preferences, but I decided to join the Pathfinder games. It looks like most of them are part of the Pathfinder Society (like RPGA), so I joined that just because it seemed to make things easier.

Creating characters, I noticed something. I really like multi-classing. First character concept? Paladin/Monk combat medic. Second? Sorcerer/Rogue. The third and fourth weren’t much better. I know multiple classes in Pathfinder/D&D 3e is not “optimal” for pure survival reasons, but I feel straight-jacketed by specializing.

This seems to be true for real life also. I’m not specialized in my primary profession. I can’t say I know databases, web, or GUI better than others. I’m just a good developer and a fairly decent architect. In my personal life, I keep trying to tell myself to focus on “just writing” or “just programming”, but no matter how much I try, I keep end up wanting to do both.

It isn’t optimal.

I’m not going to say it is wrong. If my own goal was to be a “great writer”, this isn’t the most efficient way of doing it. Same for writing computer games. But, it is also pretty obvious that, at this point in time, it isn’t going to change. So, I’ll be happy with my Writer 4/Programmer 11 for now.

Though, I’ll admit, I do feel a bit of envy for those all those Writer 15 running around.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

I seem to be drifting from Kingdom of Loathing lately. Actually, I started to work on some libraries, then completely lost interest in it. I haven’t really wanted to log into it for a few weeks now and I haven’t really missed it. I already knew that sooner or later I would get bored/frustrated with it, I just forgot how fast that feeling can hit me. And, the very nature of looking into the depths of the system just accelerated the process.

One thing is that KoL, while a fun and snarky game, is still a magpie game for me. I run around to get lots of little things, just to get my rating up for the most items collected, but it really doesn’t do anything. Outside of the game, there is nothing for all that effort I spent. I donated to the game, because I was having fun, but I just hit this point where the grind ceased to be fun.

(Interestingly, this is also why I don’t write fanfics anymore either. I can’t really… do anything with them beside write and post.)

But, I did get some really good idea for writing a game to add to my list of the “perfect game”. Not sure if I’ll ever actually write this game, since I’m sort of trying to focus on writing and college right now, but I can say that I don’t regret the time or money I spent, I’m just done for the time being.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

There is a walking challenge at work for the next six weeks. Trying to get as many steps as possible, so I’m aiming for 500,000. It is a doable goal, but will require me to push a lot harder than I have been. Which is perfect since I really need to push if I want to keep losing weight. I got my 5% by GenCon so I’m hoping to hit my 10% goal by the end of the year.

Bah, decided not to do a day-by-day for GenCon right now. Basically, the second day was great. The games got a lot more exciting, except for Shooting Ladders. While Fluffy and I were looking forward to it, the game ended up being more tactical and tedious than we expected. Just too many things to keep track of and too much strategy in the type of games we like.

I also played in the League of Unextraordinary Gentlemen, set in a HERO system. That was a fair amount of fun, mainly because we had a GM who could handle anything we threw at it. While it still had the normal railroaded plot that I expected in a con game, it was fun playing Mario from Super Mario Brothers and Lydia Deets from Beetlejuice.

On the third day, Saturday, I lost half the day for other reasons. Sen So looked like a lot of fun; Fluffy played that without me. She said she loved it so I went to buy it. One of the other players was right in front of me and basically cleaned out the store of all the cards. Bummer, but the next day I found out they had more so I got to get almost everything for her. This will definitely be showing up at our next board game night.

I also got to play a Desolation game (kind of fantasy post apoplictic game). I playtested that a few years ago at GenCon at it was cool to see how it evolved (including a few rules that came up during our session).

The last game, at just about midnight, was Snakes on a Train. A very fun HERO 6 game. I got the “worthless” character who couldn’t tell anyone he was using his powers or have anyone use them. But he had a 75 point VPP pool. So, I got to play an old-style Mage from World of Darkness. Except, my weapons were “look out for the cow!” and the world’s second largest ball of twine. Overall, definitely worth playing until three in the morning.

I only had one game on Sunday. I was an hour late (didn’t pay attention to the start) and they stopped an hour early (car checkout was 14:00). But, for the little bit I got to play, I had fun.

When I got back, I was seriously ready to head home. We actually got all the driving done on Sunday: four hours to Illinois, an hour getting dogs and my luggage *sigh*, then another four getting back to Iowa.

This was probably the most miserable GenCon I ever had, but I still had a lot of fun. Just took the effort to not let my pain ruin my having fun and it actually seemed to work. I missed a lot that I wanted to do: I missed some comics I wanted to pick up, hunting down Anton Strout to say hi, and going to some of the writer seminars. I’ll post about the authors as soon as Fluffy uploads her pictures; might as well have images for those who enjoy it.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Sitting in my living room, waiting for my date. I’m anxious to get going for GenCon though I’m pretty sure I forgot something along the way. Got the clothes and food pack. Just don’t have a wife. She isn’t packed and I’m pretty much out of things to do unless I get into the “hard to walk away from” list of things.

And my commission, but I’m avoiding that until next week.

I even distracted myself for three hours playing with KoLmafia so I can get some tedious stuff done while at GenCon (i.e. it will do my daily quests for me). It is cheesy, but I like the challenge of figuring out how to do it without abusing the server.

I’m excited, just anxious.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Having trouble sleeping tonight. Part of it comes from the drugs flowing through my veins. Drugs for pain and ones to prevent infections. The aftereffects of surgery were not too bad; Fluffy said was I all cute and groggy when I finished up. I managed to sleep better part of fifteen hours today, which also contributes to the lack of sleeping and me making a blog post at two in the morning.

The rest of this is just a list, probably not interesting for most people.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

This morning, I got a wake-up call when my eldest kitty decided that she needed some water and she is willing to get it from the kitchen sink. The dishes on the counter, on the other hand, took offense at the idea and committed suicide in protest.

I liked that bowl. :(

A small bit of drama, but no big deal.

But, I couldn’t get back to sleep. As soon as Fluffy settled back to sleep, I just stared at the ceiling, thinking about projects and things I want to get done. It is mostly little stuff, writing and programming, but a few around the house items. And that all-important lose weight to avoid diabetes bit. I won’t go into the specifics, mainly I don’t think anyone is interested in my to do list.

I gave up around five this morning and finally got up. Ended up fixing the DNS settings on the house servers to handle the piss-poor Qwest DNS settings, doing some disk maintenance, and upgrading the main MythTV front end to hopefully get rid of the annoying delay to pause (about 3 minutes at this point) while watching Mythbusters.

Oh, and I also finished up the next ascension for Kingdom of Loathing. I’m planning on jumping into the gap as soon as I get home and maybe playing a few sauce/pasta classes to pick up a few more skills. I got the two things I really wanted this ascension, Ambidextrous Funkslinging and the Hilarious Grimore for cocktail ingredients. This will be my 17th ascension in the game (all hard core except the first). I’m still enjoying it, but there is a bit of a grind that started around ascension 14.

I did make a list of everything I wanted to get done. It is a big one, but also filled with things I can get done in a reasonable amount of time. Just need to focus, which seems to be my problem. Making a list also makes me feel better. It gives me that structure I need to realize everything is solvable. I won’t be putting the entire list on my blog, mainly because I don’t think anyone cares, plus it would just be noise. But, I’ll put the current ones I’m focusing on the blog, not only to nag me but also the encourage me.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Happily, I managed to ascend again in the Kingdom of Loathing. This would be my 15th ascension and not even remotely my fastest. But, still, 30 day hardcore ascension is nothing to sneeze at since I took over double that the first two times. The key part is that I still really enjoy the game and every morning, first thing, I get online to burn through my turns.

Though, I kind of rushed the ascension itself because I was running late to work. Ended up being a “just one more thing” type of morning. Going to be worse in the new house (week from Wednesday!) because I think I’m 10-15 minutes further from work which means I’ll need to get up twenty minutes earlier to get my fix in.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Today has been a relatively good and somewhat frustrating day at the same time. A bit long and wandering though, both the good, the eh, and idle thoughts.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Today is the happiest day of the last week. Not only is it Valentine’s Day (which I don’t really celebrate but it gives me an excuse to get Fluffy stuff), but I also found out World of Goo is out for Linux!

*squee*

Yeah, it is silly for most people, but I love Linux. It fits my personality, and while it isn’t the easiest thing to work with, it just happens to be, well, me. It also is “a path least traveled” which is one of my general guides in life. Along with “may you live in interesting times”.

Not only are they supporting Windows and Wii (apparently from the download center, though I haven’t had a Wii to check it out), they also support Macintosh. Which is something most game companies don’t really do. And, I have to utterly respect that and the complete lack of DRM, knowing that it won’t make that much of a difference.

I also love World of Goo. It’s a great little casual game. And not only do I enjoy playing it, but I also look up to 2D Boy because they succeeded. They did my dream, to go from nothing and blow through all expectations to be brilliant. I have the same dream. Not only for writing but programming.

I don’t see people who succeed at what I really want as a terrible thing. Anyone who can succeed has my best wishes. Interestingly, I don’t really get jealousy either, one of those foreign emotions for me. So, for all those programmers who write the perfect game or all the writers who find themselves staring at their book in the bookstore, I can only feel joy for them.

And maybe a little bit of hope that I’ll be doing the same some day.

Now, time to run off and play obsessively.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Ended up working late last night on a customer issue. Fortunately, I’m not inclined to ignore the phone in the last three minutes of my work day in the off chance I’ll spend an hour and a half trying to fix things. However, it is highly annoying when I can’t figure out the problem. I’m suppose to be this impressive programmer, damn it.

After a quick trip to the grocery store for healthy food, I brought home the results of my unhealthy (Subway club sandwhich) lunch because I forgot to do groceries the day before. It isn’t that Subway isn’t bad, it is the pawn shop next to it that isn’t (financially) healthy. 3010 DVD’s for $30. “I got me some BAD movies!” including Ultraviolet, an absolutely terrible movie with some neat colors I like.

Since I didn’t get home late, I didn’t try to write. Instead, I just did little things. Like figure out how to get my VPN working from Linux, including a remote desktop to my work machine. Now, I don’t have to use Windows again except for World of Goo and Crayon Physics Deluxe. And the second those turn Linux-friendly, I’ll be ecstatic.

Then I spent an hour moving Glorious Saber to its new home. Not pretty right now, but it uses ComicPress in a shared environment (update one place, update them all) which means it has all those features I spent a week writing before. And, sadly, probably more secure, faster, and better developed.

Going through the strips, I still enjoy read it and looking at how my own graphical style is getting slightly mature. And getting depressed that its been over a year. And almost two years since my Exalted in-character journal has been updated. I always worry about the abstract nature of the Glorious Saber. I get complaints about the lack of arms and legs, but I like it. I also like Absurd comic and the Oblongs probably for the same reason. Though, both of those go with limited mobility where I go with not rendering arms and legs.

And, in the constant need to go to sleep on time, I managed to take almost three hours to get to bed. Apparently, in the middle of my shower, I decided I really wanted to get text-to-speech working on my computer.

…

Why?

What is wrong with me?

So, my computer can do some pretty talking. And I sort of added the programs to do some musical backgrounds. And was reminded that I really, really want an IPA dictionary to correct some of that really bad speaking. And that I liked Running Bomb but it needed help. And a tone of other things.

Guess what, apparently I’m exhausted.

Go figure.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

In my master’s class, something about communication, I’m doing a new website for Moonfire Games. It’s a fun little thing, but it got me to thinking. Organizing websites.

I have all these ideas of how to set up a site, what it should include, what it shouldn’t include. The hard part is, I’m never sure what should go where. For example, should I put the world settings in the same site, along with the forum, or use the domains I have to set up a forum and a dedicated site for a single world?

Even for the Moonfire Games site, I’m trying to figure out where I put Exalted or HERO stuff, where the software libraries should go, and everything else.

I think part of the answer is that I need to have a clear idea of what I want a site to be. It’s pretty obvious that my personal site is mostly about writing. The same for the Moonfire Games site is mostly about games and programming. Though, I can’t describe how much I want to mix these two up.

I want a good writer’s site for my personal one. Part of me thinks I should first get to be a better writer before I worry about these things, but I like web design and playing around with sites. I also haven’t found the “Making Flawless Author Sites in 103 Easy Steps” at my local bookstore.

Just something to think about.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

I had a terrible bout with depression last night. A bit of talking with Fluffy helped a little bit. So did the somewhat high maintenance cat–well the cat who wants to be petted all the time but I still love her–helped with pulling me out of my dark mood.

This morning, it was better. Could be the decision I wasn’t going to stress out about work or money today probably helped.

I also ascended today on the one and only online game I play, Kingdom of Loathing. KoL was driving me nuts actually, since I was getting upset about missing out on an once in a lifetime event because I jumped the gun with the last ascension. I know it was a game, but it took me a few days to just let it go (a skill I’m normally really good at). In the end, I missed out on a bunch of loot, but it wasn’t too bad (if I ascended two days earlier, I would have made it). Oh well, I had my fastest speed run ever (14 days from end to end, because I missed out on the once in a lifetime event, go figure), bought the once in a lifetime event item from the store, and rolled into the next round.

I also solved a major problem at work with a customer, got everything off my plate, and basically managed to take a long, deep breath.

When I get home, I start my college class.

Today is going to be good.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

This holiday week may be signaling a rather interesting change of pace in my life. Obviously, it started with putting Smokey to sleep, but it also marked the point where Fluffy gets a roommate to hopefully help with our financial woes. Sadly, my refinance didn’t go through, nor an extended line of credit, so its probably the one way to help. Not to mention, it means that Fluffy has an adult in the house and a two-year old running around. Which might help the biological alarm clock ringing every time I visit. :)

It was also a chance to watch Firefly again (yah for Nathan Fillion’s’s butt! I mean, everyone else too… :P), Invader Zim, and Absolutely Fabulous. If you can’t guess, most of the week was watching DVD’s and just spending time with the wifetype in a happy martial bliss.

We also picked up Rayman Ravin Rabbid 3. They really figured out what they did wrong with #2 and made it good for #3. The WiiFit board really worked out well for some of the games, Fluffy is pretty good at the dancing games if they involve full-body movement instead of the pure timing/rhythm games that I excel at. I also ended up playing DarkStar One until it crashed four times in two hours and a few hours of Jak II, which I’m borrowing from a co-worker.

Driving wasn’t pleasant, but not terrible. Its about 230 miles or so one way to Illinois and going there at night wasn’t too bad. FiL annoyed the hell out of me right before I left, mainly with his opinions of what you should do with gays. I hate that he won’t see any other opinion, but what can I do? He won’t change probably as much as I won’t change. He doesn’t really care if he’s a bigot, it is what he is and he sees no reason to change it. I decided a few weeks ago to stop talking about it, but he keeps bringing it up. Besides that, it was great going to Illinois, but it started snowing on the way back to Iowa. So, I had to suffer with the frequent slowdowns as people rubbernecked the accidents.

Remember boys and girls: it is the passenger’s job to look at the accidents and the driver’s job to keep moving forward. After the fact, its the passenger’s job to tell the driver all about it.

Obviously, I missed the deadline for Baby Squid God. This time, I mean it, I’m not going to do another game writing contest until 4E7 and just focus on the game I already have to fin: CuteGod, Wordplay, and Baby Squid God. I’m going to focus on writing and finishing stuff this month, around all the holiday trials, of course.

Started working on a longish story. It won’t amount to much, other than just the simple joy of writing (its pretty much non-publishable since I’m going to be posting it on a story site). After that, I’m planning on working on my two commissions (one from April of this year). I’m dealing with the fun of a new writing project, when all the characters are so… new. Its like a first date all over again.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

I’ve been using the term “Moonfire Games” since I legally changed my name in 2000. I even have a domain (http://mfgames.com/) that uses that name and it shows up on pretty much every search term for “Moonfire Games”. So, imagine my surprise when I do a random search for Moonfire Games and I find that someone created a group called MoonFire Games at http://moonfiregames.com/. According to the `whois` record, they registered the site in 2008. Eight years after I started using Moonfire Games. I assume it is either an honest mistake or oversight. But, I also worry that it is something more. Not to get against me, but simply because moonfire is a cool name.

Its annoying, since it means that I either have to trust in my fellow man not to abuse using the same name, risk the chance of not being able to use it anymore, or to defend it. Part of me says defend it, mainly because some of the things I’ve been waiting on have finally happened (I moved to Iowa) for creating my own S-corp and getting a proper trademark.

Its frustrating that someone would have done this. Part of it is my own fault for not really pushing it myself, but I’m kind of mixed on what to do.

EDIT: Actually, I got a very nice response back from the other Moonfire Games. It looks like we can figure something out, so it isn’t such a terrible thing. It really helps when you don’t respond negatively in emails. Though, I probably should incorporate Moonfire Games anyways, just because I’ve been using the name for nearly a decade now. And using it on my GenCon badge. And my emails. And my forum… :D

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Had a pretty fun weekend, though a bit too much work and self-inflicted stress. Worked on Baby Squid God for most of it, after cuddling with the kitties (7 more days and they go home). Managed to get a bouncy baby squid on the screen, but not much more. Last night, I managed to get the beginning of a stage displayed, but again, not much more. Its going slow, but its moving forward. Kind of like NaNoWriMo, I just have to “keep on swimming”. Instead of 1,400 words per day, I’m trying to average about 200 LOC a day.

In writing news, I got some feedback from Drops of Crimson. And the news is… wait until December. They got swamped and never got to the bottom of the slushpile I’m assuming. December should also tell me if White Wolf liked my story submission I gave back in September. I also worked on expanding my commission and got that out, hopefully they’ll be happy with the response and I’ll get some precious monies. So, it was definitely a writerly weekend despite the game writing.

Revamped my wishlist yesterday, mainly updating and removing the duplicates. Not that anyone buys me much, but occasionally someone uses it and I felt the need to clean up. And Fluffy hates getting me anything on the list, I have to give her special requests that no one else knows about. Not entirely sure why, but its part of what we are. And I love her enough not to bitch about it; just not sure what to ask her.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Today, I earned the right to bitch about the president and congress for another four and two years respectively. In other words, I voted. With all the stuff going on with the flood, I decided to do an absentee ballot. I got it on Friday, got to see all the candidates, look them up online, and and send my ballot out this morning. Kind of cool, I’ve never tried it before but I think I like doing it this way. I was also surprised to see eight groups for the presidential list, which is six more than most people really think about and three more than I thought was on the list. I won’t say who I voted for, but I’m really glad I had a chance to add my 0.000000004% contribution (estimated, I don’t know how many registered voters there are) to the next four years.

It was an interesting weekend. Went back to Illinois to spend time with my honey, discuss our future, and spend six hours in a car entertaining myself. In this case, I got to thinking about a novel I’ve wanted to write, so I sketched out the chapter outline. It is about a retired hero of the world who’s grandchild ends up following in his tracks. Just the idea of writing about a man in his seventies who used to be the most powerful warrior in the world just seems appealing to me. Just the idea of what happened after “happily ever after” appeals to me. And it has a great ending, I think.

I came home to notice that the Lovecraft Commonplace Competition started while I was enjoying time with the wife. And I have six weeks to figure out something. Which is really cool, since I’m ignoring the contest’s basic rule (use a phrase from the commonplace book) and going with something I think will be fun. Not that the phrases won’t be awesome, the screenshots and mockups are great. I just want to write Baby Squid God. Time will tell. I also got feedback from my old gaming group (they are old because I haven’t played in six months). Good feedback on the squid I posted, ideas on how to advance, and they are starting all these fun games without me. Oh well, makes me almost wish I pushed a bit harder to do something new at the beginning of last arc. There are times when putting things up to a vote ends up not the way you expected.

Finally, Fluffy and I are switching gears on the house. Today, we are going to pull the house off the market and wait out this credit crunch. If things go well, I can juggle monies for a while I try to get things a bit more even (secret plans!). It is… painful to do, but realistically, I don’t think we are going to sell for the next four months, so why spend all that time keeping the house presentation-friendly. It also interrupts some of our (secret) plans on cleaning up the finances. Okay, not that secret, but one involved my old boss and shouldn’t be aired. It also means two of my kitties are going back to Illinois for human contact and interaction. Paks is staying with me at the apartment; I almost have her toilet trained.

No, I’m not going to work for her.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.