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| | A weekend without the Turnpike... praise be.
Friday, Kristyn hosted yet another Girls Night. I was willingly banished to The Hole for much of the night, then did some Eldritch playtesting with Dan later (Eldritch being the Roleplaying system Dan and some other contributors are creating). That was fun. Finally made it to bed around 3 or 4.
Saturday, we had to go to King of Prussia for our semi-annual ring inspection (required to keep the warranty valid). Along the way we stopped at a nearby gaming store-- The Compleat Strategist. I was happy to find they have a BloodBowl league starting. It was quite clear that it was no where near as good as the Guild s and the players seemed generally inferior and relatively clueless about running a league, but hey... at least I can play Bloodbowl without the 1.5 hour drive. I plan on playing my first league game Saturday... we ll see how it turns out. I may be too spoiled by our league to be able to enjoy a lesser one.
Of course, it s hard to go into any kind of gaming store without making immediate comparisons to the Guild. I know the Guild at times can seem cliquish but this place was much worse. Employees seemed downright put out about having to leave their RPG to answer your questions. Of course, my opinions are probably heavily skewed... a first time visitor to the Guild may feel the same way.
The rest of the day we aimlessly drifted through the mall. Had a nice dinner and then hurried home. Kristyn had to craft a damsel costume for me for an upcoming party... I m pretty excited about that. I get to wear a corset all night with my gut hanging out... the epitome of sexy.
Sunday was football. I followed the Steelers defeat online since it wasn t televised. I m pretty convinced that replacing Tommy Maddox will solve all of our problems. I almost longed for Kordell... and then regained my senses. A healthy offensive line might help things as well. Luckily the AFC North is a really shitty division. The playoffs are still well within our grasp if we can right things quickly.
After football was our Rifts game. I m still trying to get a good feel for the system. I need to get my hands on some more source material.
Speaking of source material, it looks like I m gonna do some illustrations for Dan s Eldritch sourcebooks. Cool. I just might become a published artist. I m excited about that prospect. If nothing else it ll give me a tangible impetus to do more sketching as I m way too prone to long hiatuses (or is it hiati? Isn t hiati a poor island country down by Cuba?).
-bampf | | | Made an executive decision today. And it was all about water. I ve decided to go cold turkey on soda. The problem really was that free unlimited soda at work is such a mixed blessing. Initially I was drinking 2-3 20 oz Code Reds a day (on top of my morning coffee). That s so many damn calories. I pared that down to one, resorting to iced tea as a soda proxy... I know, not good for you, but also not as bad. Since I was getting so much soda at work I limited myself to water while at home. And I drink a lot of water... often half a gallon a night. Ice cold water is good. I really like water. So... we got a water cooler at work. We got ice. There s just no reason why I shouldn t be drinking water all of the time.
The biggest roadblock, I found, wasn t a longing for soda, but rather that they were free. It s almost as if drinking lots of soda was akin to padding my salary... like I was getting more from Liquent. That part of my compensation involves drinking $15 worth of beverages a week. It sounds silly now that I type it but that s the mindset.
Anyway. So that s my edict. Nix the soda, nix the tea. Water for me. And of course coffee. We ll see how long this lasts.
As a follow-up... should any of you care about my dietary decisions? Well, no, but you re reading aren t you? Sucker. Tune in tommorrow when I discuss the particulars of my finger and toenail grooming.
-bampf | | | Been a while since I posted... I m slipping again. I have excuses though. Not particularly good ones, but excuses nonetheless. I was home sick with Kristyn Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday... well I don t really recall what happened to Wednesday.
So our weekend of outdoor activities... Saturday butchering and Sunday at the Renn Faire yeilded some lovely colds. Yay. It was worth it though. Twas good times.
Friday night was game night with the in-laws after dinner at Angies. Always a good time (seriously, it is). Saturday we arrived a little late for the pig killing (apparently the butchering was in full swing by 7:00 am... no way I was making that on a Saturday morning). But we pitched in plenty from 8:30 till well into the afternoon. I even successfully gave Kristyn a crash course on chopping wood. Fun fun.
Saturday night we got to hang out with Chris and Sean at Chris s Ship Homecoming party. That was cool, hadn t seen those guys since the wedding. We reminisced and then watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Nice.
Sunday was the Renn Faire. Neither of us had been there in years. It was a good time. We, of course donned our SCA garb for the event. Kristyn cajoled me into buyer her a Casta Diva dress... the creme de la creme of SCA garb... that was on sale. It was one of those things where we were gonna buy one eventually so she conned me into buying it since it was on sale. I swear she really takes advantage of my inability to tell her no sometimes. But the dress was beautiful and she was mistaken for the Queen on numerous occasions as she wore it the rest of the day, so that was a good sign that it was worth the money.
Dan and Karri were absent due to an unfortunate string of travel mishaps completely out of their control. But Zephrin and Mena made it along with Mena s little brother (who seemed to have a real earnest passion for the place and the setting... not unlike myself at his age). He ll make a good SCA candidate.
Anyway, as the evening grew late, I left Kristyn with the girls and backtracked to the Guild for my scheduled BloodBowl match.
Uthus Bathu (the League s favorite son) is now both an offensive and defensive stud. I smacked around Rob s orcs for a while, but was unable to capitalize on any of the several times I wrested the ball from him... the dice defy me again. And ended up walking away with a tie despite having 3 or 4 good chances to score at the end of the game (did I mention the dice hate me? Escpecially Block Dice).
Afterward it was a traditional stop at Angies with Evan, Colin, JKarr and Kent. Always a good time.
So, that was my weekend. The rest of this week was largely uneventful, save maybe an impromtu dinner with Dan and Karri at Da Chen when we happened into the restaurant at almost exactly the same time. We ve had a really bizarre run of coincidences and links with those guys that borders on eerie.
Anyway, that s what I ve been up to. We re gonna stay home the next two weekends, so I ll have a breif respite from the Turnpike... Yay!
Oh and as a follow-up to the previous post, Jack has taken up residence right outside our front door where all can gaze upon his glory.
-bampf | | | Kristyn and I carved our first pumpkin tonight. Really it marks our first holiday as husband and wife... that we were engaged on Halloween makes it even more special, so we re kinda excited about the whole thing.
So, for your viewing pleasure:
Jack
Sweet.
-b | | | I m happy to announce the first paid leasing of bampf software (unlike Dover or KBN who ve used my software for free in the past... although I ve gotten tons of good code from Dover so I can t complain there).... anyway, KBN mentioned leasing my Bloodbowl software on one of the BloodBowl forums and then I did the same on another, and it appears there is some interest. I m not surprised, as the software is quite good... I m very proud of it, but hopefully I ll be able to sell/lease to at least a few people. Extra money is nice, but even cooler is that code I wrote will be in wide-spread use. So forgive me for a sec as I puff out my chest.
Anyway, if ya want to check it out, it s on the Guild s website (which is really just a portion of bampf.com):
AGBBL
Of course I don t know if I should be all that excited since I ve been getting paid for writing software for about five years now, but it s different when it s your own brainchild.
Anyway. Speaking of Bloodbowl, my game with The BUG! is on for Sunday after a trip to the Renn Faire with the Ridley Park gaming crew. Should be a fun day!
-b
| | | Searching for a theme on this weekend past led me to the entry subject. Mmmm... violence. Cures what ails ya.
Another weekend back in the midstate. The highlight was spending Saturday at the Enola Pumpkin Festival where the we put on an SCA demo.
We arrived in complete period garb and were able to use that to get us past 3 or 4 security checkpoints... after a while we were asking the security people where the permit parking was despite not even having a permit (the garb and a backseat full of armour made for a fine proxy).
This was the first real Luper event we d been to since the beginning of summer so it was great to see everybody and to get in armour. We did our best entertaining the crowds as we sparred for hours.
I kept my armour on pretty much the whole day... even staying armoured up while grabbing a bite to eat (mmmm... fair food... chicken corn soup). We roused a lot of attention and handed out a lot of flyers. It was great fun and good exposure.
At the end of the day we did a big melee in a little stage area (complete with bleachers) and then I had an awesome mace battle with Fenris, one of the new members. We agreed beforehand to put on a real crowd pleaser and we just wailed on each other as hard as we could for a while... we both did lots of shield attacking for maximum noise and effect. Eventually we were both so tired I quietly proposed a simultaneous death. And so it ended with two resounding blows to the head. The crowd (and other Lupers) seemed to really enjoy it (and no one seemed to notice our choreographed deaths). I m still sore. But damn it was fun!
Saturday night we saw Kill Bill Vol 1... fantastic!! Tarantino is a genius. I was thoroughly impressed. Can t wait for Vol 2. There was an awe-inspiring string of previews too... Revolutions, Alamo and Return of the King... aw yeah.
Sunday was a football day... watched the Cowboys. Shot some bow and arrow with the father-in-law. And then watched the Steeler s narrow defeat. Tommy Maddox has got to go. Teams have figured him out... he can t read defenses and he panics under pressure... I m all for Charlie Batch.
Anyway. That was my weekend. I was hoping to get a chance to stop by the Guild, but the late Steelers game pretty much precluded that. Oh well.
Next weekend I ll get my BloodBowl fix when I face Rob The BUG!! Santos II.
-bampf | | | There s a new model of the universe (actually an old model re-surfacing) gaining notice in light of some new empirical data. A number of researchers are espousing a finite universe model, where the universe is shaped like a dodecahedron (a.k.a. a 12-sided die) that bends back on itself.
So not unlike Pac-Man and other vertical scrolling video games of yesteryear, crossing the left-most bounds of the univers will bring you out on the right-most side. Freaky.
Of course light will travel in a similar manner giving rise to the possibility of seeing multiple images of the same things when looking at (or from) things on the outer bounds of the universe.
This also brings rise to the mind-numbing question of what is beyond our universe... and I m not buying the Star Trek explanantion either. The Hubble constant proves that the universe is still expanding, so what are we expanding into? Are we improaching on celestial neighbors beyond the bounds of our physical universe.
I m still trying to decide what is more imcomprehensible, the idea of an infinite (and yet expanding) universe, or a finite one where beyond some arbitrary boundry nothing can go (including light).
From a theological point of view this could prove a couple things... maybe we re just God s 12-sided die. Therefore God is a gamer (as I ve always suspected)and probably has d4, d6, d8, d10 and d20 shaped universes that he also plays with. Tangentially this proves Einstein wrong when he said God doesn t play dice, lending further credance to Quantum Mechanics. Once again, Shrödinger trumps that hack Einstein.
You all think about that. Assuming you don t die from an aneurism, feel free to add your own theories in the Comments.
-bampf | | | Everybody, let s here it for the governor-elect: Ah-NULD!! Ah-NULD!!!
-b | | | Recall election is underway in CA. I m all for Arnold. Really I am. Mostly just cause I m sticking to my controversial "Predator Cast Members for Politcal Office" stance. That and I just think it would be cool.
Also the democratic party has been particularly loathsome this time around. A group that unabahedly threw its support behind Bill Clinton is trying to sling mud by crying about sexual impropriety? This, folks, is the height of hypocracy. The trumped up Hitler thing wasn t much better. You can t even say that Hitler was a great speaker without the PC police going nuts. What the hell is that?
To add to my Arnie support I was skimming the headlines trying to find early voting results and found this blurb on cnn:
The party has made more than 6 million telephone calls to likely voters and others considered possible voters, featuring recorded messages former President Bill Clinton, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, Davis' wife Sharon and singer-activist Barbra Streisand
Excluding Mrs Davis, you d be hard pressed to name three people I revile more. To me that statement is like bragging about a David Duke endorsement. Wow.
Well, enough political talk... I normally leave that to bp, it s just this election is almost interesting enough to make me care.
-bampf | | 10/2/2003 4:00:47 PM Pig carcasses, Bloodbowl, and caucasians | Comments (2) |
| The title gives a very breif synopsis of last weekend. And a glorious weekend it was. It s taken me a while to transcribe the details (I m been exceptionally busy at both home and work) but here it is better late than never...
Friday I left work and headed straight to the Guild for my much anticipated BloodBowl game with Tipping. The first half I was brutalizing his dwarfs. But allowed him to get a late score to tie it at half. The second half was one long drive. I really think I outplayed him as I was able to manufacture numerous opportunities to take out the ball carrier, the dice just never went my way. At the end of the game I was finally able to wrest the ball from him and was one roll away from a long pass to victory... again the dice defied me. My last minute heroics did force him to make a long succession of very unlikely die rolls, which somehow he pulled off. Tipping was so elated he literally lept into the air with hands and legs akimbo shouting for about 5 or 6 repetitions. Jkarr called it the gayest thing he had ever seen... I was inclined to agree... it was that much of a miracle play.
So, I lost, but only by a pure statistical anomoly. I was pleased with the game though since I played solid and gave myself numerous opportunities to win.
After the game was the obligatory trip to Angies with KN, jkarr, and Colin. Now here s the bizarre bit. There was a middle aged guy and a younger girl with a kid, maybe 5 or so, on a leash complete with full harness. They kept walking the kid past us to the bathroom. Now mind you it was well past midnight. Pretty strange in and of itself. Then the guy approached us, with the kid in tow, stating that one of us was a Philadelphia Eagle who could give his grandson an autograph. We just sort of sat there in stunned silence before we realized what he was asking (and that he wasn t just another typical Angies drunkard). So everyone pointed me out as an Eagle. I claimed to be Carlos Emmons, one a of a couple ex-Steelers now playing LB for Philly. The kid was pretty excited about the whole thing (we think maybe he was autistic... I dunno, something was wrong with him). Anyway, I gave him an autograph on a napkin and a couple of high-fives... seemed to really make his day, so that was pretty cool. Later, the grandfather grabbed our waitress and paid our entire bill (probably about $40)... so that was really cool. When considering all the weirdness that has gone down in our countless Angies trips this ranked pretty high.
Anyway, by time I got to my parents in Carlisle it was nearly 3 am. I was up and about Saturday morning by 8:00 to help in our ritualistic pig slaughtering. This was a minimal butchering day... only two pigs, and these were done purely to be sold. In a couple weeks we ll do the full blown butchering of six pigs, complete with scrapple, puddin, and cracklins. This morning my job was hauling around 100 pound half-pig carcasses. Tiring work actually. By noon we were done and I was washing the assorted pigs parts off. Lovely.
The rest of Saturday was spent at the Guild. Knn, Angus, The BUG! and other regulars were there. Knn declared the evening Mongo-palooza and we celebrated by consuming innumerable white russians and watching Conan! That s a fine evening. Once the BUG! and I did an Irish Car Bomb (first one ever for me) I was about done... sad... 260 pounds of manflesh and I have the alcohol tolerance of an 8 year old girl. Really sad.
I crashed at Knn and Daphne s (thanks guys, if yer reading) completely exhausted.
Next morning we went over to fighter practice. Alas I didn t have my armour with me so I could only spectate, but I did get to hang out with Lupers more (which is excellent since our Two Weddings and a Honeymoon summer essentially caused us to miss the entire event season) plus Alan and Michele were the as well, so it was cool to see them since my Hbg D&D sessions are few and far between.
Sadly I had to skip out of fighting early to head over to the Guild foe football and Bloodbowl. Steelers lost, but I won. I was playing a relatively inexperienced player so I took little joy in thrashing him. However it was Bloodbowl none the less and BloodBowl is always a good thing.
Things wound down from there and I ended up driving home Sunday night after an abortive attempt to go out or play a game with the collected Guild folk.
All in all a most excellent weekend. Kristyn apparently had a pretty good time in my absence. Thanks goes out to Karri, Mena, and Zephrin for pre-occupying her while I played.
I have to admit, the weekend did make me long for central PA. I like having the city at my disposal here, but I hung out with nearly two dozen good friends and family during that time span and that s hard to beat. Oh well.
-bampf |
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