eddyfate

I have no idea how this rumor started (and I think it's quite funny, personally), but it's apparently rampant now, so it's best to put it to bed.

I'm not running for Master Storyteller within the Camarilla.

No really, I'm not.

Seriously.

* Started working out again (now that my body is finally letting me). I counted all the lifting, walking and stair-climbing on Monday as a cardio workout, and I did 15 minutes on Tuesday. I skipped Wednesday to break it up, and got up to 15 minutes yesterday before my ear started to hurt, so I stopped. My hope is to get up to at least 30 minutes by the end of the month, if not back to my original time of 40-45 minutes.

* Saw the dentist. Nothing's going wrong there. The hygienist gave me some suggestions to help with my tender gums, which I'll start implementing.

* Finished draft two of MET: Awakening last night. It clocked in at just under 202,000 words, which is 17,000 over. Over the next couple of weeks I plan to sit down with my personal editor to deal with problems and improvements I'm just not seeing, and maybe tweak a few things to get a couple thousand more words lopped off. Or just delete all uses of the word "the."

* Somewhere in the next week or so, I have to start two new projects: hammering out details for the Origins one-shot LARP, and 20,000 words on another project I'm currently calling Sekrit Project Digital Dirge. I also really need to finish reading a manuscript that's been sitting on my desk for weeks now.

* monkeegoth called to let me know that his second son, Grayson, was born and that they were home and okay. It was good to hear that everything was fine, and I'm looking forward to another opportunity to spend time at Casa del Connelly.

* Played Awakening on IRC last night, and we discovered that three WW freelancers in the same game gives you egg rolls, or possibly spare ribs. I'm still not finding my stride with Chance, but I think that's because I've played him entirely online, which is a medium I'm not totally familiar with (I usually use online gaming to supplement other games). Had to bail out halfway through to pick up dinner, and then got distracted by an OOC conversation about mechanics before I went to bed. There were some disagreements, but I got to flesh out some of my ideas on core resolution and the interaction between rules and story in MET. I may toss it into my notes for a theoretical MET 2.0 (i.e., "shit I considered shoehorning into MET: Awakening").

* I've also been starting to do email scenes with my Requiem PC, since I haven't seriously been playing him since December, and I don't think I've played him in LARP since November. The Gangrel Drama flows, and it is good.

* I haven't played World of Warcraft for a couple of weeks now. I logged in a couple nights ago, started a quest, died, and logged off. My attention will come back around to it, I'm sure, but right now I'm just not into it.

* We got plans for Wrestlemania 23 sorted out, making it as cheap as possible while still getting greebotrill back for classes on Monday. I, however, am taking that Monday off. We've decided that it'll be an early anniversary gift to each other, because we're huge dorks. greebotrill is also debating going to a dig Mexico for a couple of weeks for school (needed for her human anthropology degree). I'm very proud at how far she's come in her schooling!

My head has been stuck in the work/writing/sleep cycle for so long that I realized I haven't actually updated. Here are the high points:

* Car engine (the new car) died last Thursday. We managed to limp it to the Mazda dealership, which has an Enterprise rental kiosk right there. Mazda covered the rental car while they looked at it.

* Saw Ghost Rider and The Prestige over the weekend. I was surprised that I actually enjoyed GR -- I expected it to suck, and while it wasn't great cinema (or even as good as, say, Spider-Man, and had a few plot holes you could drive a truck through), I did enjoy it. The Prestige was really entertaining as well.

* Monday sucked. I had a doctor's appointment in the morning and my boss was off that day, so I just slept in. This resulted in me not being able to find the rental car key, failing to disarm the alarm on the other car, having to dig for the keys and alarm fob for said other car, losing and finding my parking pass, and ultimately having to reschedule my appointment. So....

* ... I went on Tuesday instead, after dealing with an obnoxious doctor (at the med school, not my doctor). My left ear (i.e., not the one operated on) has been hurting for the past couple of weeks. I am on medication to help that, but it flared back up on Tuesday. Turns out the eardrum is so plastered down over my inner ear bones that it's formed a seal over my inner ear canal. He's put me on a short dose of steroids, in the hopes that it will clear up and avoid yet another surgery. He also admitted that my ear is probably the most challenging ear he's had to operate on in his twenty years of practice, which is why he tries to reserve such operations as a last resort. I jokingly offered to be the subject of a paper. He might take me up on it.

* Found out yesterday that the problem was that the oil-change place put the wrong weight of oil in, even though it's clearly listed on the oil cap. Ergo, we need a new engine. Since we're covered and it isn't our fault, we aren't paying for it. I suspect, however, that Jiffy Lube will be paying for our new engine.

* Got the steroid scrip yesterday. These are mean -- I have to take 6 pills today, 5 tomorrow, 4 the next day, etc. until they're gone. If I miss one, it could have serious side effects. Also, I'm more susceptable to illness during this time. So, yes, I'm still not well. At this rate, I suspect I'll be actually healthy about the time MET Awakening is released. Speaking of...

* Got the final rules comments in, and made the last revisions. Now I'm in the edit phase, which is simultaneously easier and harder than I expected. It's easier because I realized in order to keep to my deadlines I have to ignore some of the small-scale polishing I would like to do and focus on larger issues like continuity and flow, proper capitalization of words, consistancy of terminology, as well as cutting unimportant or redundant words. Plus, something I thought I would have to do I might not have to do after all. It's harder because even those things take up a lot more of my time than I anticipated. I could half-ass it and save myself some time, but I don't want to. (Of course, once my final deadline approaches, what I want isn't so important anymore, so that's something else I have to balance -- what edits matter as opposed to what edits only drive me crazy.)

* I will be so happy when my assistant Storytellers can take over some of my paperwork. Seriously.

* I have my weekly WoW game tonight. That's positive.

Seems my last wordcount post didn't make it to LJ for some reason. The word meter site I use is down, so I have to do this manually (lame):

99,115/185,000 words (53.6%)

I'm caught up again (had to miss writing on Thursday due to unexpected but pleasent company, and on Friday due to the Gangrel meeting Friday Requiem game). Dizzy spells are coming back, which is frustrating, so I'm going to take some time today to relax, read Watchmen, and generally not stress myself too much, after a few hours of wrangling with Fate spells.

On a side note, Casino Royale premieres Friday, November 17th. I am so going to be there, preying desperately that the movie is half as cool as the trailer makes it out to be (which appears to be fairly faithful to the book, all things considered).

I found a decent picture of Jack Spade and his family (sans Ihsan) from the Gangrel clan meeting this year. I really need to get some more costuming for him, though, as well as a proper cane. ( Read more... )

Short short short short short version:

Stupid busy, and failed to keep up with diet, workout or writing. Storytelling Mage went well. Mage Q&A went far better than expected. Nick Ebon died. Became one of the International Members of the Year. Didn't spend nearly enough time with just about everyone (even less than usual).

Potentially a longer entry in the future. Brain no work now.

Apparently, he's a CGI artist.

As to everything else... eh. The past couple of days, I've left my brain largely unplugged, to process some changes in my local environment. I leave in something like 60 hours to Milwaukee and ICC chaos. Some I am looking forward to, and some I will be glad of when it's over.

Just so y'all know, my ICC schedule is packed. Between helping Storytell the Mage game at ICC, running a MET Mage Q&A panel from 2:30-3:30 on Friday, Requiem: the Invictus-ing, and the five million little meetings I have or would like to go to, I don't have a lot of time (and I still need to cram in time for working out and writing).

So, if you wanted to hang out and be social with me at ICC, that might be tricky. I'm trying to make specific time for some social events (like possibly the Pink Mafia party) in order to hang out with people. This will be a working convention for me.

Haven't updated seriously in... well, a while. ( Here goes... )

Just got back from Tennessee last night. Have been without internet for a few days, and I'm neck-deep in things I need to get done ASAP. One of them, conveniently, happens to be my Camarilla Mage PC (no really, it's important, believe me). For those who have been sniffing around for links, his background is up at wod_fate. I'll also be emailing people who have been patiently waiting for this from me.

I'm having a shitty time:

* Burst a tire on my car hitting a curb. It was my own damn fault, and the second time I burst this same time on this same curb (the one leading to our garage). I'll have to take a different route to park in the garage, but I've been pissed at myself ever since.

* The satellite internet people jerked us around, and we have to pay another $125 because we have a flat roof (something they didn't bother to tell us about earlier). So our options are stay with bad customer service and bad internet, or go with bad customer service and potentially good (and expensive) internet.

* We had to move the treadmill, couch, and other heavy shit last night. We'll have to move more tonight, either before or after we work out.

* Some of my games fell over during the moving last night, scattering cards and pieces everywhere. One I had to repack twice because I dropped it as I was putting it away again.

* IC annoyances in the Cam due to OOC frustrations that were no one's fault.

It's all petty shit, but I was really pissed at myself for the first item, which made all of the rest really annoying.

Most of the floors are done (all that's left are my office, the workout room, and the hallways and staircase this week). Sunday was lots of moving, but I now have a bedroom and living room again, and office space (although I'm sharing with the rest of the house this week). I feel a little more human, and hopefully I'll be able to catch up on things. Such as:

* Going to GenCon Indy this year.

* Progress on Sekrit Project C.

* Catching up on email (yeah, right).

* Finishing Blackpool (really good drama series that was on last year on BBC1).

* Watching a little bit of Transformers: Headmasters (the Japanese series that took up after the end of the original cartoon in America) and realizing that bad subtitling isn't just for kung-fu movies. But there was a cool fight scene between Soundwave and Blaster in episode two.

* Finishing up crap on various Cam characters.

* Finishing Jude the Obscure.

* Getting back on track with my journal writing and my workouts (both of which slipped this past week due to the strange schedule).

Tonight, however, probably won't be much productivity. We need to go shopping, both for food and materials to continue the move (like felt pads for the furniture), we need to finish at least getting everything out of the two remaining rooms and the hallways, and somewhere in there is dinner and possibly Raw.

There's a background scene posted in my Camarilla IC journal (wod_fate) for Jack Spade. Note: I won't always post something here when I update that journal, but since it's new I thought I would give people a reminder.

My previous experiment in Cam IC LJs (nickebon) I considered a failure. However, I realized that's mainly because of the character I play and how I play him. Some of my PCs coming up aren't as secretive and politically involved, so an IC LJ is less of an issue. As such, I've lumped all my PCs into a new IC LJ: wod_fate. Read the bio info and go from there.

I haven't updated worth a damn in a while.

The main reason is because I've been focusing on updating my PrivateJournals. Forcing myself to write about something, anything, no matter how private or stupid has been a good experience for me. Sometimes it bugs me because it feels like a shitty first draft, but then again I'm getting more comfortable with writing shitty first drafts, so it balances out.

Tampa was good. It was much more relaxing than my usual convention experience (although my PC is pretty fucking stressed out). I got to meet and hang out with some people I've never met before, and also spend time with people I don't usually get to hang out with at conventions. I got sucked into a Trustee black hole [1] and was told some very surprising things while I was there. I also got to relax, just spending time walking around, writing, or reading a book. If it wasn't for the fact that I felt like hammered shit on Sunday, the vacation would have been completely relaxing.

I also got a very surprising business opportunity. I can't say any more about it. However, I can say something completely unrelated to it, which is that I have a decent-to-good chance of attending DragonCon and GenCon Indy this yearn (as well as another surprising offer of crash).

Jazz has been doing just fine, and was a welcome companion in Tampa. I recently rearranged my office, which caused me to lose my wipeboard, but I'm experimenting with a piece of free software (Stickies, which are virtual post-it notes) that might replace that. [2] Not that I NEED to replace it, but it's one less thing cluttering up my office.

Which reminds me, I need to declutter my office.

Seasons 2 of both Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who have been hit or miss, but good enough for me to keep watching them. I'm hoping Season 2 of Deadwood will also be good. The ECW leadup has also been pretty good, and I'm hoping the actual premiere tonight will continue to hold with the quality.

So there you go. All updatified.

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Footnote 1: Strangely, I'm friends with nearly all of the Trustees in the Camarilla, but I'm not one.

Footnote 2: I basically have two "to do" lists, one on my PDA and one on my wipeboard. There's some logic in why one gets used and not the other, but it's escaped my conscious mind.

Much of this weekend was checking things off the massive To Do list:

* Finished migrating things off of my old computer and onto the new one.
* Named new computer (Jazz). [1]
* Reorganized office to accomidate docking station. [2]
* Played Requiem.
* FAILED to attend a "State of the Game" meeting for Forsaken that I wanted to be at.
* Went to a wedding for greebotrill's coworker. [3]
* Exchanged text messages with a couple of friends.
* Got my double-breasted black suit and grey sports coat altered to fit better since I lost weight.
* Got a new keyboard that works with my docking station for $20.
* Mostly caught up on massive email backlog.
* Chores around the house to get other things in order.
* Started organizing myself for my short story submissions.
* Updated my To Do list on my Palm to cover everything I have outstanding, so I don't feel like I have to do it all at once.
* Prepared to move a bookshelf into my office. [4]
* Have written in one of my journals every day thus far. [5]

This week is mostly finishing a few things I'm in the middle of, and preparing for Neglect. I'm not feeling particularly social, but we'll see how I feel when I get there.

( Footnotes )

I don't do post-con reports anymore. They either end up insanely long and skirt the line of IC/OOC information that I'm comfortable with, or they're so vague and flippant that I might as well just not bother. However, I have to say that I'm genuinely conflicted about EClipse. In some ways, it was one of the most stressful, painful, aggravating, upsetting, and difficult Camarilla conventions I've attended. In other ways, it was one of the most exciting, incredible, amazing, intense, and enjoyable ones.

I feel like something ended and something else began. I just don't know what yet, although I have some ideas.

Friday: Homework, mostly, and hanging out with greebotrill.

Saturday: Catching up on my writing [1]. The story went in a bit of a weird direction, but I'm following along to see what happens. Right now I'm not entirely sure how to end it, but I'll probably use my lunch today to just take a stab at tying it together, so I can spend tonight and tomorrow typing it up and trying for a second draft. Also watched The Godfather until very late, which was interrupted by a short visit with good friends while greebotrill stayed home to bake very good homemade bread and cookies.

Sunday: Took off from homework and email. Watched garchangel play Kingdom Hearts 2 for a while, and read a little bit of my Robotech novel. naamaire came over, and we watched a lot of wrestling and ate a lot of very good homemade food. Also had a very positive phone call with a good friend, which put some things in perspective (in a very good way). Got to bed way, way too late.

Today: Exhausted and have a slight stomach cramp (probably from so much rich but very yummy food). Reminding myself to try and avoid Monday classes in future.

This Week: Busy. Class, IRC scene/story, class, UWA/Exalted, Requiem, Changeling, and then some free time.

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Footnote 1: Continued to hand-write this weekend. At one point I got frustrated and wanted to make major changes to the story, but the prospect of rewriting it all gave me pause, and I decided to just keep going, which is what I am supposed to do anyhow.

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