Ravings of a Textual Deviant

If I could paint, I’d probably try this too.

In reference to the BP oil refinery explosion in Texas, Paul presents us with:

A center for an important resource goes boom.

Continuing my long habit of swiping other peoples’ ideas, I’d make this an Elven Special Forces mission. (Elven Special Forces is Doug’s creation.) The players are members of an ESF team. Their mission is to destroy a facility in another country that makes a dangerous, illegal, magical drug…or so they’re told. Turns out that the Director of ESF, who comes from a family that manufactures a vital, legal magical product, has decided to destroy a rival manufacturer’s facility. Will they find out before they blow up the factory—and how high up does the conspiracy go?

One of the many Nice People I work with organized an egg hunt for our department today. There were brightly-colored plastic eggs all over the place—windowsills, chalk rails, the top of cube walls, and even balanced precariously on the number pad of my phone. I IM’d the responsible party to congratulate her on her bunny’s agility and ability to lay eggs anywhere.

Responsible Party: He wasn’t big on “hiding” them this year; too much work.
Me: Given where he’d have to balance, I’m not surprised. And if “he” is laying eggs, you ought to call the National Enquirer. It’s their kind of holiday story.
Responsible Party: I know for a fact…he laid those eggs and they are filled with…candy! However, I believe he must be somewhat constipated because those are HARD eggs.
Me: And there are an awful lot of them. What have you been feeding the poor guy?
Responsible Party: Nothing but rare steak.
Me: I can see the headlines now…

Maybe it’s the days getting longer, or Martha Stewart getting out of jail, but yesterday I was possessed by the notion of cleaning out my garage. This may not sound radical to the Reading Public, but cleaning out the garage is one of those things that simply isn’t comme il faut in my family. My maternal grandparents went for over 25 years without cleaning out their garage; in fact, I think I can safely say that my grandfather never cleaned his garage. He died in the mid-1990s and when the clan gathered to help my grandmother clean it out, we found vacuum tubes in the original packaging. We also found rolls of asbestos and enough assorted tools (and tool boxes) to stock at least one tool box generously for my grandmother and each of us seven grandchildren…including the elementary-schoolers. As a result, I have drill bits that are older than I am—again, in the original packaging. We found rolls of asbestos and parts for cars that were long gone. I still don’t know which of my uncles ended up with Grandpa’s drill press. Furthermore, it’s not just my mom’s side of the family. I don’t think my dad has ever been able to park his car in my parents’ two-car garage…despite the fact that he has a decent-sized garden shed (which I have not been in since 1993, if memory serves—there are some things I am better off not knowing). This despite the fact that he had generously stocked a tool box for me when I moved into my first apartment, and presumably done the same for Ari. My brother and his girlfriend only have one car, because he’s a bicycle commuter…and they park the car in their driveway because their one-car garage is full of “stuff.”

In comparison, my two-car garage isn’t that bad. We moved into the house in October of 2000, and had been letting stuff pile up since then. Nevertheless, I was adamant that both of us would always be able to park in the garage, which meant that stuff had only accumulated around the perimeter. Still, it had encroached on quite a bit of space, to the point where our cars were so close together that Ed had to squeeze sideways out of his, and it’s a good thing he’s lost some weight recently. I didn’t get the place completely cleared out, as there are still a few boxes to go through—maybe five or so. On the other hand, I did throw out four broken lamps, a runner that was ruined when the old garbage disposal threw up, the “magical collapsing office chair,” a crushed plastic planter, a plastic bag full of four-and-a-half-year-old, used paint-roller covers (what the hell was I thinking, saving that?) and three pairs of Ed’s blown-out tennis shoes, among more conventional things like old, crushed cardboard boxes and a box of broken Christmas ornaments. (For the record, Ed hasn’t chosen put up his artificial mini-tree since a year that started with 19.) I cleared the built-in tool bench, organized the yardwork stuff, parked the snowblower in a more convenient location and put the ice-melter near it, cleaned the outside of the chest freezer, swept out the dirt and leaves, and I even organized my tool boxes. (Yes, boxes—I have four. Sometimes you can’t fight heredity.) I’ve got one box that’s just paint and wallpaper tools. I have two complete socket sets, seventeen different hex wrenches, including two adjustable ones, three staple guns of various sizes and vintages. I have tools I can’t even identify, and plenty of others I can identify but don’t know how to use, like a spark plug wrench and this weird, mutant clamp thingy. I have more router bits than you can shake a stick at. And I can find every last one of ‘em. The whole project was done in less than two hours, amazingly enough. I have impressive piles in my front yard for both the recycling and garbage pickup, and I am inordinately pleased to report that the recycling-pickup pile is the larger one.

That left me time to tackle the laundry room. I moved things I rarely use into the cabinets I can’t reach without a ladder. I moved the power sander and cordless drill to the tool bench in the garage, as there was plenty of room. I threw out empty bottles of cleaning supplies, and made better use of the space in the closet. I reorganized the laundry cart and the housecleaning cart. I made Ed take his coils of category-five cable off the laundry cart (again, I don’t want to know) and put them somewhere else. That left room for the new vacuum cleaner (that does suck) in the closet, and I moved the one that sort of didn’t suck into…the garage.

Does anyone want a semi-functional Dirt Devil upright, complete with two belts and a nearly-full package of bags?

Coworker A: I wouldn’t want your job.
Coworker B: I’m beginning to wonder if I want my job.

UPDATE: Coworker C: Time flies when you’re going crazy.

We’ve spilled a lot of photons talking about what real life brings to (or detracts from) gaming. Let’s flip that around.

What does gaming bring to your real life?

I’m going to start off with something practical—one of my coworkers is a software tester who truly loves her work. I don’t know enough to say exactly how good she is, but I do know that she has a hell of a lot of experience and knowledge (Level 10 Software Tester, minimum). She contends that gaming makes her a better software tester because she’s learned to think strategically, and to approach problems from a variety of angles. I probably won’t ever get the chance to watch her bust a system wide open, but I know she delights in the process.

The two things that come to mind for myself are 1) I have learned that you should always look up, and 2) my friends and husband. #1 is useful, but #2 is significant. The core members of my current regular group are people I’ve known since we were undergrads together. Others have joined over the years, and become just as much part of the group as we originals. We’ve been attendants at each others’ weddings and attended each others’ parties; we’ve borrowed each others’ cars and when some of us didn’t have cars, we bummed rides not just to games but everywhere—I’ve taken members of my gaming group to work, the airport, and to minor surgery. When I was in grad school, one of my group loaned me her car three or four nights a week for the better part of a year, so I could take an overnight job (no bus service). Some of us have been roommates in various combinations over the years. When Ed and I first started dating, he was thrilled to learn that he wouldn’t have to explain the funny dice to me. (I could go on about the benefits of a two-gamer marriage, but I won’t.) When I lost touch with a couple of friends as a result of one or both of us being in graduate school and/or another state, I was able to reconnect through PBeM gaming. And I must confess that one of my main motivations in running the Grand Ellipse in the first place was to introduce Dorothea to Alisa. I think I can safely say that my life would be very, very different without gaming, and probably not nearly so much fun.

Purim is late this year, just a few days before Easter, so I saw an opportunity to make a batch of hamentaschen that I wouldn’t have to finish by myself. I asked Ed if he thought anyone would mind if I brought them to his family’s Easter celebration.

“You want to bring what?”
“Hamentaschen,” I repeated.
Pause.
Pause.
“What in our time together leads you to believe that I know what you’re talking about?”
“Oh,” I said, as I realized exactly how long it’s been since I made them. “Purim cookies.”
“Are they good?”
What kind of a question is that? “No, honey, I want to bring your family crappy cookies.”

We buy our sarcasm in 25-pound bags, we do. Weekly.

But how can you go wrong with fruit-filled triangular pastries? I emailed my mother and asked for her grandmother’s recipe. You have to cut her quantities down considerably—1/8 is usually about right—but it’s worth doing the math. (Note: The recipe below has been cut down already.)

Mom comments: To the best of my recollection, They (presumably my great-grandmother, Great-aunt Cessie, and possibly my cousin Marge) used canned apricot and prune filling, so I don’t have a recipe for the filling, but a nice pie filling recipe would do.

Poppy seed filling is also an acceptable alternative, and one of my favorites.

½ c (4 oz.) cream cheese
½ c soft butter
1 c sifted flour
¼ t baking powder
filling
milk
water

Mix cream cheese, butter, flour and baking powder until smooth. Flour a board well and roll out. Cut rounds 3”-4” in diameter. Put a spoonful of filling in center of each round. Fold up from bottom, then fold over from both sides. Seal edges with water. Brush hamentaschen with milk. Bake in 350° oven for 25 minutes.

In the course of an IM conversation about the alleged merits of the latest version of MS Word, we went from Douglas Adams (”Computer, open the door straightaway or I shall go straight to your main databanks with a large axe and give you a reprogramming you’ll never forget) to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (”You’d be surprised how many things that [staking] works on.”) to the Arrogant Worms’ “Malcolm” in record time.

Originally, I intended to write about what I’ve noticed in my food log in the past two weeks or so, but that probably isn’t interesting to anyone but me. In fact, it isn’t even interesting to me anymore. At this point, I think it would be much more fun to keep a log of what I would like to eat. Or better yet, what I didn’t eat, and get a negative-calorie credit for it. For example, at my nephew’s birthday party yesterday, I did not eat either cake or the Oreo cookie/vanilla pudding concotion. Even at only a tiny portion of each, that ought to be good for, say, 400 calories total credit. That’s a lot of good chocolate.

…it’s messed up enough already. That’s me next to Ginger, also pointing and laughing.