Karen Friesen

Gaming

An interesting session in Midwrathe on Thursday. We jumped through a portal and all. The coolest bit, though, was when we were being stalked by something we couldn't see, cause we were underground and it was dark. We had everburning torches, but no one wanted to go and see this thing up close and personal.

So snarg had this chicken called Betty. He tied one of the torches to Betty and threw her in the direction of the thing. Worked like a charm, only Betty the Chicken became Betty the Pile of Ash when the thing touched her.

Life

I've just been to the pub where I indulged in one of my guilty pleasures -- beer and coffee. I am no longer a caffeine addict -- and how wonderful that is! I can get up in the morning and be awake without coffee or tea! I can be smugly superior as I order my decaf double A. But I do use caffeine medicinally and recreationally. Medicinally for bad headaches and recreationally for when I need a creative boost.

But beer and coffee at the same time -- it makes my brain work double-time and I feel happy and energized. The only problem is that I can never get good coffee at a pub. Oh, and I can never sleep afterwards, even if I indulge in the afternoon. But it's the weekend and I have to do a playtest tonight, and I'm trying to relax. So, I indulge.

Here's a photo of my coffee mug with the cream in kind of an interesting pattern. I'm trying to take more photos, so I'll actually get good at it someday:

( amazing coffee cup photo, 22k )

The coffee/beer combo makes me philosophical. I was thinking how there were two main lessons I'd learned from my classical education. (I have a BA in Greek and Latin Language and Literature.) Don't believe anything you read and moderation in all things. But I've only internalized the first. I really need to apply the second. Right now I have this plan of making lists and thinking how best to parcel out my time so I can do everything I want to do and everything I need to do and still manage to sleep and make a living. Good luck to me.

In other news, I bought a $20 electric toothbrush. How cool! I love gadgets and I've had a fascination, over the last few years, with the dental industry. Not dentists themselves, though I've had a lot of work done recently too, but the toothpaste and brushes and other paraphernalia. They have to keep coming out with new and different stuff, to conquer our brand loyalty and to keep us buying stuff. But I think it's hard for them to find a truly new invention in this field. So, we get yet more things being added to toothpaste: breath fresheners, tartar control, and now whitening. Toothbrushes get funky grips, cross-actions bristles, and now, the affordable electric. Yay!

My teeth feel lots cleaner, but that may be due to me wanting to brush my teeth more because I have a new toy. Still, it seems to do a better job on my wisdom teeth, which is all to the good. They're hard to reach.

OK, enough rambling for today.

( Quiz spam - My Perfect Angel Episode )

Here's your icon, shaygod. Want, take, have. Let me know if you want different text or something.

I have this lingering feeling that I had a great revelation today, something profound. But perhaps I'm just recalling the moment when I finally found the syntax to connect to an Access database with JavaScript. I should add that this is for a website I inherited. Who uses ASP, anyhow? And when they do, who uses JavaScript when they could use VBScript instead?

New albums:
Kill Hannah, For Never & Ever - Odd, androgynous sound, maybe kind of gothy? I love it.
Dropkick Murphys, Blackout - Not the first album of theirs I've bought. Celtic punk out of Boston - so much energy and humour. I hope I get to see them live someday. Best song: Black Velvet Band. But they're all good.

At work, I often listen to radioio's Alt Rock channel through iTunes and whenver I hear something I really like, I write it down and then hunt up the album later. But I always have a terrible time in A&B because I don't know much about music, so I never know where to look. Punk? Electronica? Pop? World music? And when I do ask someone, it usually turns out they don't have the CD. Maybe I should bite the bullet and order from Amazon.

Life.

I have tried three times to add "knights of the dinner table" to my interests. What gives? Do free accounts only get a few interests? Or does everybody hate me?

So, Green Regent. It seems pretty broken. Our party of gnomes (I'm Sparkle the cleric) who blow things up encountered a human in a bar who cheated when we gambled. We beat him up and got a bag of many hundreds of gold pieces. Of course we could only use them for the adventure, but still! We spent them on a very expensive hotel room and some pleasurable company.

It's fun to be a gnome with gunpowder. There's no situation that can't be improved by blowing something up. Though in one instance, we diverted a stream instead. Digging, not explosives. Effective, though.

This was one of those adventures with a completely illogical hook. There's a scary ghost and a bunch of people who threaten to beat you up if you follow the ghost. OK, we won't follow the ghost. Oh, we were supposed to? The hell? Let's blow something up instead.

We did get to best a human street gang. Being swarmed by gnomes is not a pleasant thing. We gave them a sound drubbing, all to the greater glory of Garl Glittergold.

There was beer. And cake. And gunpowder.

Who could ask for more?

This is a test. This is only a test.