danohead's Journal

Whompah
This past weekend saw highs and one low. Carrie and I went out for Indian food (delicious korma!) on Friday night, then over to

phargle and

tsiar's place to borrow some clothes for the Amtgard party the next day. Later that night I decided to have some whiskey while playing video games with

olde_fortran,

akender, and

ifetus. Mistake. I was hung over for most of Saturday. Luckily I recovered just in time for the party, which was a blast. I only wish I'd kept my camera handy and popped off more pictures. Mom's place for tasty food on Sunday.

More xbox on Monday with

akender and

olde_fortran reminded me how fun Borderlands is.

Exercise is going good. I busted out two 4-milers in the past 2 days to keep ahead of the rain this week. This afternoon will probably see me exercising indoors.

Burrito Quest hit a brisket wall last night, or at least that's what it felt like we were trying to eat our way through with The Bear.

Heftymetals wrapped up season 2 last night, as well. A decently climactic fight in which our heroes decided, in the end, to make a deal with the devil Marduk, instead of killing him. Now our heroes are home again, after a long slog through the Shadowfell and a somewhat unfortunate dungeon crawl, four years down the road, and have raised from the dead the heir apparent to the throne of Glitterbeard. Political machinations are on the horizon, and for our heroes that can only mean hilarity is about to ensue.

Current Mood: creative

Drilled
The dentist called to say there were not other appointments before mine this morning, so I got in an hour early. Putting off jacked up filling replacement was a bad idea back in October. But at least the drilling was painless, without even a twinge of accidental root drilling. I guess the old filling was pretty shallow. The new one feels ok, but I think he filed it down for the bite fitting in some weird way cause the edge of the tooth feels pretty sharp now.

After the dentist I went by Coas looking for Andy Rooney's My War and they had a pristine copy. I picked up that, Eyewitness to History, and Studs Terkel's American Dreams: Lost and Found. I dig the hell out of history as told by people who lived it. And it's worth mentioning that you can listen to recordings of interviews by Terkel at www.studsterkel.org.

Stopped by Carl's Jr. after Coas and ate it while watching Away We Go. Liked the movie. The food is sitting in my stomach like a brick and I'm blaming that for posting this instead of working out.

Current Mood: lazy

Coy
I took Piper for a walk in the bitter cold and could hear a coyote howling in the desert as we got outside. We were to the other side of the arroyo before it stopped. As we moved up onto the straightaway I saw it looking at us from back behind the creosote. I howled back a little, but I don't really know the language. I lost it in the thickets as we moved away, but when we rounded onto the uphill I glanced back and saw the other two coyotes, up on a rise overlooking where we'd just been, silhouetted against the low clouds. On the way back it was darker and every twitch of mesquite limb was a coyote scampering off, every deep shadow under the creosote a coyote sitting and watching us walk back home.

Current Mood: curious

Winter Warning
Got up this morning, turned the heater on, then while shaving I noticed the air blowing on my neck was cooler than it should be. When I checked, the heater was doing the almost same thing as back when the flame sensor had needed to be cleaned. That is, the flame would come on then shut itself off, trying again in a minute or so. The difference this time was that the blower was kicking in after the normal amount of time, blowing cool air around the house, instead of the whole system shutting down after threes tries at the flame. Had the heater guy out to look at it again and it appears that the pressure switch is going out. Not that I wouldn't rather spend money on something else, but at least he didn't show up, bang on something with a hammer, and presto it's working again. Easy (and to some, obvious) fixes on home appliances always make me feel stupid and lazy. They have the part though and it should be fixed this afternoon. Just in time for a cold snap.

Hit up some L4D2 with

olde_fortran,

akender,

ifetus, Paul, and Wit(sp?) last night. Was pretty fun, but I think I liked the Campaign (either Co-Op or Vs.) better than Scavenge. Scavenge was ok, but the short time frame and limited map kept things pretty static from round to round. Fun though, need to do that more.

Outside work clouds have descended down from the mountains and shrouded the land in wet fog. I like it!

Current Mood: content

Aaaaoooogah! Gold Mountain, Assemble!

Gold Mountain
Isaac did this drawing of the principles of the Gold Mountain Adventuring Company from our Heftymetals D&D game last week. A noted omission is Rufus's (Ben's) bound assassin imp, Scully, who the leader of Gold Mountain, Boron (Isaac), actually allowed into the company, much to Rufus's consternation. Boron, Rufus, and Lumberg are Heftymetal cousins, while Melon is of the Blackrock clan (and currently only a head), and Jorem is of the Ironhelms, an ancient enemy of the Heftymetals (and currently of vampire lineage).

Current Mood: amused

Klima
Star Wars: Death Troopers was pretty lame. The production values were very good on the audio, but the story, of which I was all of a quarter of the way into when first I posted, suffered from bad editing and lots of incongruities. Also, as is the case with almost all Star Wars novels, it eventually introduced characters from the main films into the story.

Wrapped up Spook Country as well. It was pretty damn cool, but almost too cool. It felt a little like the book knew how cool it was, and while it wasn't smirking at you with this knowledge, it wasn't about to let you forget it either. It also seemed careful not to blow up into something badass and awesome, which I appreciated, for a present day speculative fiction novel. I dug it.

Next up, Desolation Road by Ian McDonald. And I may load up the Going Postal audiobook I listened to for a while before realizing the tracks were coming in out of order. I'd like to get up to speed on Moist von Lipwig's happenings before picking up Pratchett's Making Money.

Current Mood: good

Insulation
"A nation...consists of laws. A nation does not consist of its situation in a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, the individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation...Are you really so scared of terrorists that you'll dismantle the structures that made America what it is?...If you are, you let the terrorists win. Because that is exactly, specifically, his goal, his only goal; to frighten you into surrendering the rule of law. That's why they call him 'terrorist'. He uses terrifying threats to induce you to degrade your own society...It's based on the same glitch in human psychology that allows people to believe they can win the lottery. Statistically, almost nobody ever wins the lottery. Statistically, terrorist attacks almost never happen."
-William Gibson
Spook Country, pg. 136-137

Current Mood: tired

Spooky Troopers
I've been listening to Death Troopers on audiobook recently. The idea of a horror story set in the Star Wars universe was only a little intriguing, but the production values on this particular audio are great, very impressive. And as the story progresses I'm finding it pretty damn creepy in places too. The bit with the wookie toddler was disturbing.

Spook Country contiues to be a good read as well. I've only been getting to it before sleep, and maybe that qualifies some of the next statement, but it has a very...etheric, ephemeral, something like that, quality to it.

Rain called for through Saturday. Hopefully it stays at the drizzle level so I can get some jogs in.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Salvation Palvation
This past weekend was all Hawaiian food, drinking Murphy's outside by the fire, watching Tudors Season 2, and Terminator: Salvation. I was a lazy ass on Sunday, but that was the only day all week I got 0 points, so all in all not bad.

Terminator: Salvation was either poorly edited, or written, or both. I could follow the story such as it was but, wow, were there a lot of unexplained scene cuts and characters just doing something seemingly for the hell of it. Not as bad as Wolverine, but perhaps only moderately better for the robots.

Heftymetals went well last night. Our heroes advanced into the Far Realm tainted area of the Pyramid, so I deviated completely from what's in the module. Seems to me that an area tainted by unknowable madness ought to see lots of weird teleportation and craziness, not just more hallways. First off was an encounter in the belly of some immense beast. Next up, all the family comes calling in the Heftymetal halls, in the form of undead.

I've been reading Eyewitness to the American West off and on at work when I get spare moments (that usually means in the bathroom) and I hit a story in the last day that was badass. It was an excerpt from Andy Rooney's book My War, in which he talks about when he and 6 other reporters boarded B-17s and tagged along on a bomb run out of England. Wow. I think I'm going to buy a copy of that book.

Current Mood: okay

Bastards and Noodles
Two days in a row of gaming makes for a good start to a three day weekend.

( A Song of Ice and Fire RPG )

( GURPS Cyberpunk )

Current Mood: good

Home Cookin
I cooked the hell out of Sunday. Got started with a beer bread that

phargle and

tsiar gave me. Dumping a beer into the mix that came in a bottle was easy enough. It came out tasting something like soda bread, and is delicious warmed with butter. Next I cut up the strawberries we had and made some strawberry ice cream, as it was the next recipe in the book that came with our ice cream maker. Also delicious, despite maybe using 2/3 of the strawberries called for. And for the capper I made two large pots of posole. We had a whole bunch of dried peppers left over from posole makings on Xmas, plus a large can of hominy. Ended up pretty good. Mom and Bernadette came over for dinner, and after feeding some to Alex and

snivelfish as well as lunches for Carrie and myself, we still have a very large batch for freezing. The cooking saga will likely continue through the week as yesterday Carrie picked up our first bi-weekly veggie box from the co-op. Some things I know what to do with (purple potatoes, garlic, apples, tangerines, grapefruit, romaine, sweet peppers) and some I'll need to look up interesting recipes for (kale, rainbow carrots, cauliflower).

snivelfish came over and hung the painting we commissioned. It looks great, with colors that match the room well, and fills the space nicely. Damn fine job, Jenni!

Burrito Quested the Sandia Special last night. I was expecting potential awfulness from a milanesa sauce/bbq sauce combo, and got something that was kind of meh. I guess that's a good thing. 51 burritos down, 9 or so to go.

Also got back to Heftymetals after the holiday hiatus. Was good to get back to it, but I think the game might be bogging down in the current situation. Perhaps I need to get things moved to something more interesting.

Last night I dreamed that while standing in a tall building, that building began to fall, sliding sideways toward the ground. All in all the fall was pretty gentle, but since buildings were falling down this was obviously the apocalypse, so we joined in the looting of a Burger King/Taco Bell restaurant.

Current Mood: pensive

Coyote Truck
Yesterday, while walking the dog, I spotted a coyote up by the lead-in to the levee. Some time ago (and likely buried in this LJ somewhere) I saw three coyotes out in the desert, one that favored its back leg. The one I saw yesterday was doing the same thing, in the same way. I'm pretty sure it's the same creature. As we moved up onto the levee it retreated into the creosote and mesuqite and I saw that there was another, larger, coyote sitting in the thicket watching us. They were both still there when we came back by, but curled up under the base of some creosote. I think they were settling in for a cold night.

Last night I had a dream in which Carrie bought a truck. We were on vacation with Dad and she had to go back home for something. When she came back she was with Joleen (her old roommate) and was driving a truck that was huge. It was essentially a truck-shaped winebago. Man was I pissed that she had bought that thing.

Current Mood: calm

Zzzzz
I got loads of sleep last night, despite waking up around 2:30 to let the dog out and being convinced that I should be quiet as there were likely zombies roaming about outside. Of course, loads of sleep in my case means 8 hours; out at 8:40 up at 4:40.

One of

ruhlman's recent posts reminded me that I owe Carrie a homemade chicken pot pie from a bet a while back. I should look at making that in the near timeframe. Hopefully she'll let me have some.

Current Mood: relaxed

Book It
I've been down on discovering good books to read for a while now. I read Under the Dome by Stephen King last month and dug it enough that it kept me reading even when the tv and xbox were demanding attention. Now I've started up Spook Country by William Gibson and it looks, despite me having to readjust from King's style to Gibson's, to be pretty damn good as well.

I wonder if this new surge in book reading is in any way related to the recent demise of almost all of my magazine subscriptions.

Current Mood: curious

Dingus Bartholemew
Got together with

ifetus,

phargle, and

olde_fortran las night for

olde_fortran's last night in town. We burrito quested an amazingly bland burrito (Rock, it was called), had some beers, and played The Shab Al-Hiri Roach. The game was a lot of fun. We hammed it up a bunch, probably neglecting the supernatural aspects of the game more than we should have, but still had a good time.

Going on 48 hrs. with no caffeine and I'm happy to note that there has been little in the way of withdrawal symptoms. I was tired as hell for most of yesterday morning, and maintained a very slight headache for most of the day, but other than that not much to note.

The irritation I'm feeling at my job could be associated with the above, but more likely it's the realization, after coming back from a break, that my new job role is much more tedious, if only somewhat busier, than my last. Add to that the feeling that not much of what I'm doing is all that important, and likely never ending (and thus without a sense of real accomplishment) and work is not my favorite place to be right now. Ah, well, it comes and goes.

Current Mood: bored

Holiday Craziness
Xmas to now was hectic but fun. Jon and the kids came into town and we had a third Xmas. Got some shirts, one a corn hole shirt, which is pretty funny considering we were looking at something similar for Jon. Looks like we should have gone with that after all.

Our last Burrito Quest for 2009 was the Red Rider with our largest compliment yet;

olde_fortran, Jon, Cameron, and Alex all joining in. It was an alright burrito too, which is good because it could have been the Rambler, which was awful.

nakachuki and Traci came into town a little before New Years. And what with

olde_fortran being here too, we got together with all of them, plus Jon out at the bar on Wednesday night. The amount of beer I drank may have seemed a bit much given that New Years Eve was the next day, but I think it helped me temper things that night, which is something I wanted to do.

Saw both the Hangover and Avatar in the past week. Both damn fine movies. Hangover does a lot right with comedy for me. Avatar did a lot right with awesomeness of visuals.

New Years Eve was rockin and mellow, depending on where you were at in the party. I spent a lot of time outside around the fire. Carrie spent a lot of time, for a wonder, around the Jager bottle. It rocked on into the wee hours, but not so wee as last year. Thanks to

phargle, who I think brought the Guinness, which I enjoyed most of the night without previously knowing I wanted it.

New Years Day we did the annual New Years Kickball game. Had about 20 people out, which made for good times.

Rounded out Jon's visit by taking Cameron out to the park to swing some foam swords around with the Amtgarders. He had a blast, and thanks to

ifetus and

phargle for helping with that. Then later I took him over to

ifetus's place and ran some D&D for him,

ifetus,

phargle, and

tsiar. Was pretty fun even if I think Cameron got a little bored toward the end and decided attacking his friends might be more fun than killing the monsters. The hypnotoad gave him a bit of an excuse, I guess.

Oh, and I finished out the 2009 Exercise Challenge with 5.5 points to spare.

Here's to 2010, may it be all and more!

Current Mood: good

Happy Xmas!
Back from Carl-Bad. Scored a Visa gift card and a Cuisinart ice cream maker. Also went to church. After seeing Religulous, my bullshit sensor was on high. But I was a good boy, even passed on the free snack from the transubstantiation ritual. Xmas gift exchange happened right after we got there on Xmas Eve. I spent most of Xmas Eve putting together the Kynex roller coaster Carrie's folks got for Ross. Oh, yeah, NEW YORK CHOP SALAD!

Tonight and today, Xmas day, Carrie and I drove back from Carl-Bad and split a bottle of wine, had cheese and crackers, while we upended stockings for Santa loot! I got an America's Test Kitchen cookbook, Left4Dead2, a sun visor for the new coche, and lots of candy. Also, Dad hooked me up with 3 more months of Beer of the month (every other month starting in March).

Made posole for dinner while we watched movies (Four Christmases and Julie & Julia), then Alex came over for traditional Xmas with Alex. Tequila!

Current Mood: good

Holiday Beginnings
Met Mom at Ruby Tuesday last night, as I wasn't going to get much time with her before Xmas and we hadn't gotten together since she came back from Mississippi. She was back there visiting Mo Waldon, who has been in a nursing home since shortly after her second hip surgery. Mo's not doing so great, physically or mentally. She's pushing real close to 90, so maybe that's partly expected, but it's still sad to see some of the pictures Mom brought back.

After I got home

olde_fortran (him being in town for Sagemas) came over and played a couple games of Pandemic with Carrie and I. That's a damn fine cooperative board game. We lost the first game, despite our inadvertant cheating, coming close to the fourth and final cure just as the player cards ran out. Won the second game, without cheating, due mostly, I think, to a lucky shuffle of all the black cards to the bottom of both the player and infection decks. Still that did push up the infection levels in the red and yellow areas and the outbreak track was two away from us losing when we discovered the fourth cure. All around very cool game. Next time I think upping the epidemic level to five is in order.

Tonight, Burning Empire world building and Burrito Questing the Rambler. Tomorrow, Carl-Bad.

Current Mood: contemplative

Luck of the Pots
Gaming was out this weekend due to visitors. Hopefully it will be fuller next week on account of them. Or him.

olde_fortran is coming into town on Monday and there should be some very merry gaming Tuesday and Wednesday. Perhaps some over the weekend as well.

Friday we got a bunch of xmas shopping knocked out, then went out to dinner with

ifetus and

snivelfish. After there was some pew-pew on Halo online. After, Carrie and I watched Defiance. Ok movie, but some pacing issues, and likely longer than it needed to be.

Saturday night was Southern potluck night. Carrie and I made corn bread, chicken and dumplings, and sweet potato pie. Further contributions were made by Alex (homemade macaroni and cheese), Alicia (black-eyed peas), and

snivelfish (corn on the cob and mint juleps). A very successful and delicious theme potluck.

I'd been slacking on updating Burrito Quest but weeks 46 and 47 are up. Lately all the burritos that I expected to be crappy have been pretty good. I'm not sure what to expect on the veggie, egg, and sour cream burrito we have coming up this week.

Been reading Under the Dome, Stephen King's latest. I'm about halfway through and its pretty good stuff. Feels good to be on a book that will keep me up reading an hour past when I had planned on going to bed.

Current Mood: good

Post It
A week of an update, let's see.

I pushed on the exercise last week and got myself back up over the line by about 3 points. A good place to be with the end of the year coming. Now I just need to maintain the baseline for the next two weeks.

Regular gaming was nixed for the week, but that meant doing of pickup Song of Ice and Fire game with

ifetus and

akender, which was pretty awesome. We didn't have to spend an hour and a half building our house and its history, but I'm damn glad we did. It frontloaded the game with all sorts of juicy bits, both for the players and the gm. Additionally, it gives the players something to care about. There was the usual stumbling through new rules in the play but the roleplaying stuff more then made up for it. Also, knowing that the stories are intrigue-heavy going in makes the lack of combat just fine. It was a lot of fun and I hope we can get back to it at least once a month or so. It's also piqued my interest in the books again and I may start listening to the audiobooks while jogging.

Carrie was supposed to go up to Denver for the weekend with the girls. She woke up Friday morning with stomach problems. They made it to just past Santa Fe before turning around. Pretty crappy way to spend the day for all involved, but at least this wasn't as bad as the last time, meaning it didn't involve a trip to the emergency room. She woke up Saturday morning feeling sore but much better.

Been playing Halo on Xbox Live with Cameron. S'fun, even more so now that he has a headset and can communicate with me. Also, we got

akender to join in for most of Friday night, which uppped the fun quotient. I care a lot less how much I suck at online play when playing with friends.

This week I need to wrap up most of the Xmas shopping.

Current Mood: content

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