eddyfate

It's been a while since I've done this, and I'm getting ready for a LARP in a few minutes, so let's get to this.

• 30 Rock: I admit, when I first caught a couple of episodes of this show, I didn't find it all that funny. But we kept hearing lots of good things about the show, so on a lark we started watching season 2 through Netflix Streaming. We got so hooked that we went back and watching the first season, and now we're catching up on the latest season on Hulu. It's a surprisingly entertaining show with a dose of weirdness that keeps it entertaining.
• Uncharted 2: I wasn't a big fan of Uncharted, so I wasn't all that excited about Uncharted 2. But David picked it up and started playing it, and one night after getting frustrated with Brutal Legend, I decided to give it a try. The best summary I can give is that this game reminded me of the excitement I had when I first watched the Indiana Jones movies. It's more Indiana Jones than any Indiana Jones game I've played.
• Star Guard: On the completely opposite end of graphics quality and price, Star Guard is a free Flash run and gun platformer that just shouldn't be as much fun as it is. The way the story unfolds adds an interesting layer to "green guy kills all the red guys." There's also a checkpoint system and infinite lives, but the corpses of your previous incarnations litter the battlefield as you work through the game.

More as I get a chance.

It's been a while, so let me catch up.

Car and Internet: Last week I switched Michelle's SmartCar for my Mazda 6 again to commute to and from work. Friday after work the Check Engine light came on, but I was able to get the car back home. Saturday morning, the car refused to start. Since we had just replaced the battery, it clearly had to be something else, so we had to have it towed to the dealership. It didn't get looked at until today, and they want to keep it overnight to make sure that it's working right (apparently a pin in an electrical switch was loose).

So I worked from home today -- since Mondays are usually just taking care of my administrative stuff, it's easy enough to do from home, but I need a steady VPN connection to access the Exchange server and the company intranet sites. So, naturally, our Comcast connection crapped out around 3:30pm today, not coming back until several hours later. I had a couple of things I could do offline, but it means that some things I wanted to get done today I have to do tomorrow instead, and I'll have to work those around picking up a car at some point tomorrow.

Writing: Aside from my White Wolf work, I'm taking more steps toward more personal writing. oakthorne, emprint and I are going to start a small writing critique group to workshop each other's writing. I'm looking forward to it -- we all know each other's writing, we've all developed for each other and we've all had lengthy conversations about style, so it should be very helpful. I got oakthorne's first couple of chapters to read over.

Reading: As my 50-hour weeks have finally died down, I've been taking more time to read. If you haven't found it already, I've been keeping track of my reading list on Goodreads.com.

The most significant recent book I've read, though, was A Game of Thrones. I haven't read any of the Song of Ice and Fire series before, but I've had a number of friends recommend the series to me over the year. The weird thing is, I'm actually not a big fan of epic fantasy -- I was always more of a horror and sci-fi kid growing up, and long books with dozens of characters all doing the same thing over and over just bore me. However, some co-workers made some compelling arguments, and I agreed to borrow the books and tried them out. I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised, and once I can borrow the next book I'll check that out as well.

I'm also two-thirds of the way through Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is everything I expected it would be, with the addition of ninjas.

Video Games: I have slowly working through my second time playing Fallout 3 -- this time, picking up as many side quests as I can and exploring as much as possible. I can't find out where to determine specifically how long I've been playing, but I'm pretty sure it's around twenty hours right now. I'm also poking at Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, which I picked up in a Sherlock Holmes package for $20 at Best Buy. It's a bit simpler than I thought, but otherwise not bad. (Which reminds me -- I need to snag a copy of Shadows Over Baker Street some day....)

I am trying very, very hard to resist the urge to take a Sherlock Holmes story and a Lovecraft story and mash them together a la Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Jonathan Coulton: Went to the Jonathan Coulton concert on Saturday. It was three and a half hours of pure awesome, and probably the best $20 I've spent on live entertainment in a while. The opening act was Paul and Storm, whom I had never experienced before, but they're definitely a group I'm going to check out. Also, just noticed that the three of them have put out a RiffTrax for Tron.

That should be enough to tide y'all over for a bit.

The past month or so has been challenging. Most of it has been revolving around work, my main hobby, or the incredibly murky gray area between them, with a few personal things that have nothing in common with either of the previous two things (except for the fact that I really can't talk about them). This week has been closer to my usual level -- closer to fifty hours a week instead of the seventy hour weeks that have been going on. Plus, work has swung back from "shit that needs to be done" to "shit that's fucking awesome to work on," which always helps. And the haters seem to be growing more and more incoherent and hilariously paranoid, which means it's moved from being sincerely upsetting to something closer to watching your dog try to catch his own tail. Especially when it doesn't have much of a tail. Or neck, for that matter.

So, I figured I would take a moment to do some catching up on my Media Whore segment.

Reading: While in Canada, one of our hosts let me browse through a bookstore, and I managed to pick up a copy of Spade & Archer, a prequel to The Maltese Falcon. Apparently it's still fairly new (the book had a 2009 copyright date), which I take as an indication that Canada likes me. While the book doesn't have as much Archer in it as the title would imply, and the plots are far more convoluted than Hammett did, the writing and feel are very close to the original. I also picked up Black Dahlia by James Ellroy, which I'm still working on. Apparently it surprised Russell that I hadn't read Ellroy before.

Television: Yes, I watched the final episode of Battlestar Galactica. In Canada, even, with about six other people. I've also been watching the first couple of episodes of MI-5 (Spooks in the UK), which is a lot of fun -- a bit like a British version of 24. I've (finally) started watching Burn Notice as well, so apparently I'm on a modern spy kick right now.

Video Games: Not a whole lot, but I am picking up Mass Effect again once in a while. I might poke at another game for a bit in the near future.

Podcasts: I think I stumbled across it by accident, but Two Minute Danger Theatre is an entertaining send-up of old radio serials, and you really can't beat the time investment. I got caught up on the 60+ episodes on my flight to Toronto. I also finished up the first season of The Takeover, which was entertaining.

More sifting through free indie video games. This one is the closest I've ever seen to a poem in video game form. It's called Passage, and it's well worth five minutes of your time. I'd recommend playing it a few times and trying new things before checking out the creator's commentary. It's gotten me thinking about my own life.

The past week have been a bit like a cartoon coyote: I've been running so hard and so fast that I didn't realize the ground wasn't under me until just now. I conceptually knew it was Friday, but it didn't really sink in that that means it's the end of the week until just now. I've been juggling my usual post-con workload combined with bad planning on my part and a temporary increase in my work responsibilities (which involves playing video games, so I can't complain) while struggling with a mild cold or allergy or something, so it's all been a bit of a blur. Let me catch up on a few things:

* Cruise went well. I had a better time than I anticipated I would, but unfortunately I didn't get to see too much of Mexico, as I had work obligations to fulfill. I did get sick near the end of the trip, but I got over it pretty quick, so I'm not sure if it was sea-sickness, my usual vertigo combined with the rocking of the ship or just something I ate. My biggest regret was having to bail out on a LARP theory roundtable on Friday night to talk over "Killing Sacred Cows" because of said illness. I still end up being a little anti-social on these kinds of trips because I miss my family, and this was a particularly long one, but from an objective (i.e., me not being a whiny bitch) level it was a good time.

* Recently I've been really hooked on the Rain-Slick Precipice games. I didn't expect to like them, but it seems to hit a sweet spot with me between old-school computer RPGs, fast reflexes, inside jokes from a variety of sources, and just plain adolescent vulgarity. The Xbox version of episode two seems a little glitchier than episode one was on the PS3, but when I'm not playing video games for work, I'm pretty obsessed with these right now. (Especially since I'm stuck as hell on Gears of War 1.)

* Finished Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman while I was on the cruise. It was recommended to me after my review of Playing For Keeps (buy it buy it buy it buy it), and there's certainly a similar vibe here, down to a very prominent hero not making an appearance until late in the book. It loses focus a few times, and there are some plot elements that don't seem to be adequately wrapped up, but it was a fun read on the Kindle, and worth picking up if you like superhero fiction.

* Speaking of media, check out the Scam School video podcast. It's tagline is "social engineering in the bar and on the street," and it's a surprisingly entertaining look at card tricks, bar puzzles and other kinds of party jokes. Some of this stuff isn't new to me, but seeing people's reactions and hearing how the various elements are designed to "socially engineer" the audience is fascinating.

* In my gaming life, my new Requiem PC G.T. is settling in nicely. I accomplished my core goal of having a new PC that has lots of reasons to attend the Atlanta game, and a side benefit of getting some decent global play going with him. It's also been entertaining to try to re-learn a game I know very well just from other players. Meanwhile, the victorian age Mage tabletop game is being scrapped and replaced with a modern Mage tabletop game. I have a couple of ideas for characters. I've also been consistently smacking down the urge to run a game of my own.

* I've also been consistently smacking down the urge to write fiction again. Just when I think I have time to spend maybe an hour a week poking at some fiction, something happens to suck up my free time. I know that if it gets too bad I can just re-prioritize and give myself the time to write, but at the moment I've convinced myself that I don't have the time, and that seems to be keeping the muse at bay somewhat. Part of the problem is that I don't know WHAT I want to write -- every time I see a good movie or listen to a good podcast or read a good book, I want to write, but it's a different idea each time. I have about fifteen million worlds kicking around in my head, but I haven't sat down and worked on compelling characters or interesting stories yet. (Part of the problem is that when I DO get a neat story or character idea, I can find more immediate use for that at work.)

http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Garriotts-Tabula-Rasa-Pc/dp/B000SAV6RS?_encoding=UTF8&pfRdReplace=1

I picked up a copy for research purposes. Even... controversial games have educational ability.

* Installed twitterbar on both my laptop and work Firefox browsers, so I can do it more often than "when I think to check my phone and Twitter account."

* Partially that's because I'm preparing to leave tomorrow for ICC, and I want to see if I can "live blog" the convention through Twitter.

* And partially it's because there's a certain amount of strange shit that happens in my life, and I want to see how much of it I can capture.

* Planning to play G.T. a fair bit at ICC. Will probably play Jack Spade a bit, but right now it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Jack or Aspasia to be hanging around large Kindred gatherings for a long period of time.

* Picked up a couple of books this weekend - yet another anthology of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, and Night Watch by Sergey Lukyanenko - to flip through when I'm not working at ICC and on the LARP Cruise. I'll let y'all know how they are.

* Also picked up a new Xbox 360 to replace the dead one we've had for a couple of years now. Got a lot of good Gears of War action in over the weekend. Also got a Halo 3 collector Master Chief helmet and stand that I gave to Chaney as a present.

* I missed Raw last night. I'll have to catch up next week.

It's a zombie movie. The protagonist has rescued his buddy from being attacked by a zombie, but he finds out his buddy's been bitten. Does he try to save him, or put him out of his misery?

This time, you get to decide.

The Outbreak is an interactive movie, a combination of good old "Choose Your Own Adventure" interactivity at key points combined with decades of frustration yelling at stupid horror movie protagonists. The idea, in retrospect, is very simple: construct a decision tree of events in a zombie survival scenario, film each option, then use the power of the Internet to show the options, allowing the audience to click at key points and make a simple but interactive zombie movie.

The site is surprisingly good quality and accounts for a lot of different ways to experience the movie. If you fail, you can start over from the beginning or try "Chapter Select" and get a tree of your previous decisions, and which ones are untried or led to your death (unlike, say, Dragon's Lair, which often kicks you back a notch and forces you to try again). As you go through, you'll see some similar scenes, but creative editing allows for subtle differences in certain scenes from time to time, and earlier choices can (and do) impact later ones.

The only downside I see is that the choices are fairly arbitrary. Move Furniture or Get Wood? Fuck, how do I know? There is a fair amount of clicking on choices at random and hoping they work out, but that's not too different from the source they're emulating (Choose Your Own Adventure books), so it's a minor beef. It's also really short -- I played through every option in about fifteen minutes. However, it's one of those head-slapping "why didn't anyone think of this before?" ideas that I'm hoping will take hold and propagate on the net.

I'm behind, so here we go.

* Betrayal at House on the Hill (Board Game): I borrowed this board game from Kelley after she spent weeks trying to track a copy down, and we ended up playing a couple of games after our Mage game canceled out. It's one of many "RPG as board game" style games, but it's got a lot of clever little mechanics that really make it feel like a horror movie. It's surprisingly deep and has a lot of replay value even after you've uncovered all 50 scenarios. If you see a copy, it's definitely worth picking up.

* Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People - Episode 1: "Homestar Ruiner" (WiiWare DLC): Don't let the extremely long title fool you -- there's not a lot of depth in this . I'm a big fan of Sam & Max Season One as well as a fan of Homestar Runner, but unfortunately it's only my enjoyment of both sources that kept me going. I frequently got lost in sorting out what I was supposed to do, and many of the puzzles seemed arbitrary (which, granted, makes sense in the world of Strong Bad, but isn't a whole lot of fun in a point-and-click adventure game). If you like each it might be worth the $10 to kill 4-5 hours, but otherwise I would wait until the entire season is done and see if it grows into its property like S&M did.

* The Long Goodbye (Novel): Okay, I admit it -- I'm a huge fan of Raymond Chandler, so it's hard for me to knock any of his books. But The Long Goodbye is an interesting one in the Philip Marlowe series. For one, it fleshes out Marlowe's character a bit more, especially after the events in the previous books. Secondly, there's about thirty billion different things going on at once, and while you might see one or two of them coming, there's some that come out of nowhere. Finally, there isn't really a case per se -- it's Marlowe going from bad to worse because of his standards and ethics, which is the dilemma really at the heart of the American detective genre of the early 20th century. This is probably Chandler at his best, and well worth a read even if you aren't enamored with the genre.

So this week has been kind of insane.

Monday I got up, went to my car, found I was low on gas, then spent 20 minutes trying to find a gas station that actually had gas to sell. Upon failing this, I drove back home (so I would have enough gas to try again the next day) and worked from home. I then proceeded to work a ten hour day. There are three interesting things about that:

1) It seems that the AC went out in the office at about the same time, so I ended up avoiding another round of "sitting in my chair and quietly melting."

2) I barely noticed. When Michelle got home around 5ish, I was knee-deep in a project that "will only take a few more minutes." When I was done, I didn't even notice an hour had passed.

3) I was stupidly productive. I got five projects off my desk that had been lingering in some form of limbo, and I'm now very nearly out of the GenCon backlog-slash-clusterfuck.

So I went in Tuesday very pleased with myself, especially after having found the one pump that actually had gas nearby. And promptly ran smack-dab into a complicated office move. Just about everying in IPD&D and Operations is changing offices, but it's being done in a way that means we have to move one person at a time. Craig was moving in my office (which I will be vacating here shortly), so I worked in the library on some off-line projects for the afternoon. In the meantime, I got a swag package from Epic Games, so I got a chance to play Unreal Tournament III on my PS3, and once we get a new XBox 360 I can finally try out Gears of War.

Today I found out that I won't be moving until at least this afternoon, but Craig is largely moved in (if not unpacked), so I put my computer back together and I'm getting some work done. Of course, this is while contractors are here to continue to fix the AC as well as the gas leak from last week, as well as the separate team of contractors that are here to install our security gate. But, I'm running part two of my Wednesday lunch-time Hunter game today, and I have a meeting this afternoon, so hopefully things will fall into place enough that I can be in my new office by tomorrow morning. (I can't choose to work from home the rest of the week due to meetings.)

This happens to me a lot -- things falling into place without me realizing it. I'm going to be a bit behind in the end, most likely, but I got so much done on Monday that it should net out to what I anticipated getting done this week anyhow.

Time to catch up on the life thing. Life is actually pretty sweet right now.

Work has settled back into a good rhythm (New York + Morocco + bronchitis really threw off my work flow for a while), and I'm making good headway on the development of the Scion Companion, which is turning out to be a very fun book. I'm also deep in research for a new book I'm developing with the help of Russell and Joe which also promises to be really cool. This is the third book I've developed from the beginning, but it's the first that's completely my idea and vision; Mind's Eye Theatre: The Awakening I was given a lot of leeway on, but I chose to be faithful to Awakening and Mind's Eye Theatre, and the Scion Companion was developed with a lot of insight and input from John and Rich. It's been exciting and nerve-wrecking to stretch some creative muscles that haven't seen use since Midway City.

One thing that combining my main hobby with my work has done is given me more time to invest in other interests (when I'm not working 50-hour weeks, that is). I've been playing Grand Theft Auto IV a fair bit, although I'm currently stuck on a couple of difficult missions. I've also been playing a lot of Rock Band, and with the new drum pads we got so we don't annoy the neighbors, I'm developing a solo career on drums to complement my career on guitar. I've also been catching up on some graphic novels that Kelley loaned me (as well as a stack I got at New York Comic Con), and I'm actually back to reading for my own enjoyment. I finally caught up on Torchwood Season Two, and I'm a few episodes into Doctor Who Season Four. I'm caught up on House (curse you, season ending cliffhanger!). I've been watching Raw every week, ECW most weeks, and Smackdown once in a while. I watch movies in the theater as well as at home. I had forgotten how much I gave up juggling a job and a freelance career.

Also, my social life in and out of work is far, far better than it was in St. Louis. Easily three times a week we're going out and doing something, whether it's dinner with friends, a movie with a group or just the three of us, or a party with my co-workers. Last Friday Michelle came to work for a BBQ at the office, and we expected to stay for only an hour or so, but ended up staying until midnight talking with some of the Icelanders before they headed back. This Saturday we're going to the Ren Faire with the company, and then there's a birthday party that evening. We've also been going to see live shows like Jon Stewart and Jeff Dunham (who will be in town next weekend). I've been playing in the local Camarilla LARPs, I'm in a Mage tabletop game that Joe's running for a few of us at the office (at least, in theory) and once again I've gotten that bug of kicking around a tabletop game of my own.

---

See, here's an example of how cool things are right now. Russell just came into my office to talk about a project idea he had, and we spent ten minutes just talking about ideas for it, intermixed with just bullshitting about old Choose Your Own Adventure style game books (not the actual CYOA books, but the slew of knockoffs that had you rolling dice or characters fighting each other and the like) and the original Vampire: the Masquerade -- Bloodlines video game.

... bronchitis. Doc gave me scrips for an inhaler, some pills and a nasal spray. After the all-hands meeting this afternoon, I'm going to go home, get gloriously doped up on prescription meds, and play GTAIV before I start work again tomorrow.

Although the way this day has been going, I was starting to wonder if it wasn't an allergy to stupidity on the internet.

I was correct that most of my birthday was spent playing video games (or vidjo games, as a good friend would say). However, I was wrong about what game it was.

It was Rockband, which greebotrill and garchangel got for me for my birthday. I spent a few hours going solo as a guitarist and drummer, before Mercy Flushers was formed:

Lead Vocals: Greebo (greebotrill)
Lead Guitar: Eddy Fate (eddyfate)
Drums: Rochelle (garchangel)
Bass: Random women the computer assigned to us

Mercy Flushers took LA and Chicago by storm, but we can't attract any more fans because we can't play well on Medium yet. But it was an awesome tour.

May you have a rockin' Christmas this year. :)

Yesterday I did some work (which consisted of reading the playtest files of a really cool game), played some EVE Online, and then spent several hours getting reacquainted with Mass Effect.

Today's my birthday, so I expect at least one of these will happen again today.

Remind me sometime to post about my evolving relationship with video games.

(Edit: Even have new video game icon in preparation for the event!)

I've been so wrapped up in work and posting short fiction to my Camarilla IC LJ (wod_fate) that I haven't had a chance to post a personal update.

I got back into St. Louis late Friday night. It's been great seeing greebotrill and garchangel again, as well as Puck and Greebo. It was weird having a proper weekend, too -- the last three weeks I've been doing something work-related for most of the weekend, and before that weekends were where I got most of my writing actually done, so having two days where I don't have to focus on something game design related was a strange feeling. I played a little Smackdown vs. Raw 2008, watched Survivor Series, ran some errands with greebotrill, helped around the house, and generally relaxed.

The past couple of days I've been getting up around 7 so I can work from 8am-4pm (which corresponds to my usual 9-5 schedule in Eastern time). Actually, it's been more like 8-6, as I've been reading up on Scion to get acquainted with the line. I finished up the drafts of the Storytelling Adventure System (SAS) core documents and kicked them up for review, and I did a revision of Sekrit Project: Digital Dirge (remember that?) and kicked that up for review. Today will probably be a few smaller projects I've been meaning to work on regarding the print-on-demand side of things, and then I'll start doing redlines on some of the other SAS manuscripts sitting on my desk.

I've also been watching the first season of Babylon 5 as I've restarted my workout routine. I try to do 40-45 minutes of cardio, and I had found in the past that an hour-long episode without commercials fits that perfectly. kristnitori has all of B5, which I have never completed, so she loaned me season one to watch while she borrows my first season of House on DVD. Before I return to Stone Mountain, I'm going to work with greebotrill on developing a workout that I can do in my hotel room, without equipment, so I can stay on the wagon. I'll also be a little more careful about what I eat as well.

It's been a busy week thus far, but I feel like I'm finally settling in a bit.

Crawling out from under my projects for a real update.

A couple of nights ago garchangel rented Smackdown vs. Raw for the PS2. I did what I usually do with wrestling video game -- I jump right to the character creation mode, make Eddy Fate as best as I can, and dive into season mode. I had a miserable experience, and nearly threw down the controller in disgust.

Last night, after hammering at "PunkRock" and then getting something to eat, I decided to kill an hour giving it one more try, after garchangel got a copy of the rulebook. I spent ten minutes trying to figure out the arcane season mode again, and managed to finally switch characters. After some consideration I decided to play Eddie Guerrero, in memory. I had a very different experience. I don't know if my knowledge of the game improved, but I think it's more likely that I made a really bad character. So now Eddie's the US champion after a cage match with Booker T, and has Torrie Wilson as a manager.

Tomorrow I turn 31. My plans are pretty much to sit on my ass and watch DVDs and play video games. Exciting. Woo. (I kid -- it actually does sound pretty entertaining to me.)

I'm starting to get the itch to run a tabletop game again. I have to wait until garchangel finishes his awesome Exalted game, but I do have a few ideas, ranging from a game of Serenity, to an old-school fantasy dungeon crawl (perhaps spiced up with the background from X-Crawl) using Savage Worlds, to a pulp action "Dick Tracy" style police procedural campaign set in Midway City, to an interesting concept I'm calling "Manchester" that allows players to make their PC as they play. As usual I'm jotting down notes as they come to me.

Back to the salt mines to earn my salary.

A bit of a ramble. ( Where I babble a bit about my interactions with video games over the course of my life. )

I made it to work. Let's see if I can make it through today.

The most exciting parts of my evening were me restarting my Knights of the Old Republic 1 game, getting frozen custard and managing to not get too dizzy in the car ride, and the stupidly cool 30s mugshot album that adamjury showed me; it just oozes with Midway City character ideas (note: link is eBay auction, may go down in near future).

Tonight, probably a little more MC, a little more research, and a little time with greebotrill. Maybe I, Claudius tonight. Dunno.

Did some more poking and editing at MCLARP -- nothing major, but trimmed down redundancy and added a third system I'm still debating on. Since it was mostly editing, I'll use my editing wordcount today.

1,528 / 1,000 (152.0%)

Work was difficult today, and wore me out. Afterwards I basically flopped on the couch and played Jade Empire for four hours. I didn't plan to, but my body just wasn't up to anything more strenuous. Also started reading my Oxford NRSV -- very exciting. I'm such a geek for well-designed reference books.

Got a very nice (and unexpected) card from Mr. and Mrs. secret_fire. It's strange: a decision made by neither of us over two and a half years ago caused us to not speak to one another for some time, but since they've both come back into our lives, I've realized that I treasure them greatly. It's amazing what a couple of years will help you to realize about yourself and the world around you. Thank you, secret_fire, and I hope that I can spend more "quality time" with you and yours this time.

But, I'm still not well, and the day has taken its toll on me.

Last night, my dizziness didn't get much better, so I decided to be pre-emptive and call off work today. In retrospect, that's probably a good thing, since every just taking a shower took a lot out of me. I am able to sit at my computer and focus a bit more than I was able to the last two days (which is good, since that's most of my job), but I still get dizzy and a little uncomfortable at times. So, today I'll poke at a few things, maybe do some research, and generally relax (even though I've been feeling guilty that greebotrill and garchangel have been doing chores and the like all over the house and I just sit and watch them).

Speaking of, something I forgot to mention. On Friday, after I was recovering, Dr. Kletzker gave greebotrill the update. He made a comment to her that I was a "model patient," and that he might have me come in to talk to extremely reluctant patients to help reassure them and offer my personal experiences. It hasn't come up again since then, but if he's serious I'll be glad to do it -- he's certainly done a lot for me.

Aside from that stuff, though, I've been poking a bit at Midway City LARP (yes, even in a dizzy and half-powered stupor I can crank out LARP mechanics), reading a bit, jotting down some more notes for Domhan, and playing Jade Empire and Burnout 3. I need to get my watch battery changed, get a new color cartridge for our color printer so I can finish putting up my pictures, get a frame for my Mark Twain print, etc. etc. etc. Funny how, when you can't work on things, projects come out of the walls at you.