Ravings of a Textual Deviant

Enjoy the day and don’t forget your SPF!

“Things aren’t so much in a state of flux; it’s more like the Grand Duchy of Fluxembourg.”

As promised:

1. An overlapping string of minor but extremely uncomfortable ailments had me feeling drained for about five weeks. Feeling much better now, and I assure you that you don’t want any more detail than that.

2. Since I started feeling better, Housemate and I have gotten more diligent about going to the gym. I hadn’t been doing much more than yoga a couple of times a week, and some of my clothes are getting tighter than I’d like. We’ve done water aerobics a couple of times, now, and it feels good to be back.

3. Housemate’s niece graduated high school, so we trekked out to St. Louis for that. It was nice enough, but not so nice that I’m ready to thank my mom for insisting that I attend my own high school graduation.

4. Some friends of ours got married (here in town, which I certainly appreciated ), so there was the bridal party trip to the salon on a Friday, and the wedding on a Saturday. I was not actually in the bridal party, but I’m the one who has the contact info for the salon, so the bride kindly allowed me to tag along.

5. Last summer, I promised Housemate I’d try out golf this summer, and I finally took my first trip out to the driving range. I was borrowing his clubs, which were way to big for me to use comfortably. So, I got a set of a more appropriate size and gave it a second go. I’m told I did pretty well for a first try. I am a terrible judge of distance, but Housemate estimated I was driving about 80 yards. Several balls went off to my left, but some of them also went more-or-less forward, and I did enjoy getting out. I think it’s something I could enjoy without caring whether or not I’m any good at it.

6. Work has been interesting, and not bad-interesting, for the most part. I did have to say good-bye to one of my long-time (in contracting terms, anyway) team members, and he’ll be missed. I’m sure his successor will work out fine, but it’s never the same, is it? Work has also been quite busy lately, to the point where I often feel as though I’ve had a full day by noon.

7. Housemate and I have been trying to go through everything that got moved into the garage when he emptied his storage unit. This process has involved a lot of re-organization of the garage and garden shed. Furthermore, the need to clean out the interior of the house—especially closets—has become undeniably evident. Simply put, we’ve got too much stuff, and Something Must Be Done…mostly by me, as I do have mind-boggling amounts of stuff. Housemate actually has a reasonable volume of stuff, but it’s an interesting assortment, and there are all kinds of things that each of us would like to keep, but don’t know what to do with. For now, though, we’re just trying to get Housemate’s parking space freed up. (In all fairness, when I say “we,” I mean that Housemate does most of the work, and I occasionally hand him tools and kibbitz.)

I expect I’ll continue to be busy, but I hope that I’ll also continue to feel better, and will be able to get back to writing a little more frequently.

“Can’t live with ‘em, can’t keep hungry pigs around all the time.”

“…and this section is called ‘Additional Activities,’ because we can’t call it ‘Sh!t Added at the Last Minute’ in formal documentation.”

Busy lately. Details to follow.

Pineapple upside-down shots, if you’re curious. Thanks, Evan!

There’s nothing like a few days in town, attending all-day meetings with courtiers, to make defending a large town with about 500 trained individuals against an invading army of ten thousand fanatical goblins seem like a simple, straightforward problem. Speaking of which, we were bouncing ideas around to deal with that very problem, including the possibility of some biological warfare:

Medrin the Mage: All we need is a little poo in the pudding.
Anja: (to Urgon the Scout) You know that’s your job, Mr. Sneakypants.
Urgon: I can’t poo that much.

So much for that idea. And I’m not sure that evil gods feed their cannon-fodder pudding anyway. We had trouble getting beyond generalities for Mr. Sneakypants after that.

Darya: See gnome evil…hear gnome evil…do gnome evil.

So, we turned our attention to more important topics, like how to get ourselves and our stuff the heck outta here if/when the town gets overrun.

Medrin the Mage: What happens if you open a rope trick inside a bag of holding?
DM: End of universe—thank you very much, have a nice day.
Darya: Well, that does solve our hobgoblin problem, but the down side is, we don’t get paid.

When it comes right down to it, I’m just not a “destroy the universe to save it” kind of gal. I’m actually rather fond of the universe, flaws notwithstanding, and I’d like it to continue existing, thanks, if it’s all the same.

But I digress. Extremely.

Personally, I think the town’s probably going to get overrun; whoever laid that place out was thinking “picturesque” rather than “defensible.” Cute may occasionally save an individual’s bacon, as I know full well, but not so much with real estate. On the other hand, at least those godsawful all-day strategy meetings would come to a definite end, rather than just adjourning for the day. And being the only one in the room who’s able to notice the subtleties doesn’t help.

DM: (to Mal’s player) Spot check.
Mal’s player: I don’t spot.
DM: Listen check.
Mal’s player: I don’t listen, either.
All the other players: We know.
DM: (to Mal’s player) You suck at this game.

Finally, after much wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth, we came up with a reasonable plan that might work, and managed to get Lord Whatshisname and his backup group to go along with it, more or less. Not able to resist making a bad situation worse, Darya went the extra mile to make things more difficult for the enemy. She made contact with the local underground got the inside scoop on the remaining warlord’s personal security setup (lots; he must’ve beeen paying attention to what happened to his coworkers), and recruited herself some help with trapping the killing zone, a la Draelin’s Ferry (the Platonic ideal of pretension is surely being an overconfident, French-speaking elf; I love that!), as well as issuing an open invitation to sniper “practice” after the fighting starts. And just to be sure, Darya did specify the sniping should be at the evil army only please, we need all hands on deck right now. You can always kill anyone who does survive later. Mal also put in a little extra effort…sort of. His answer to “Where have you been?” was “I was getting information. And laid.”

So, we have a plan. Fortify the town as much as we can. Raze some buildings to create a killing zone. Get pikes into the hands of everyone who can manage one; find other jobs like message-running and water-carrying for those who can’t. The surviving strike teams (us, and half of one other) will spend the next few days causing strategic mayhem. Siege equipment must burn, giants must be slain, blah blah blah.

But before all that gets started, Darya is going to have do do something about her nails. And those split ends simply must go. Constance could use a trim, too, come to think of it. Especially that back hair. Yeah, I know, but hey, half-orc and all.

Medrin: (to Darya and Constance) I don’t want to know what you two do in your tent.
Mal: Each other’s hair, apparently.

A: It was probably the *facepalm* heard ’round the world.

B: Eventually, the trauma wipes these things from our minds.

A: Yep, leaving neuroses in their place.

B: Sometimes, you have to stop and smell the neuroses

A: We haven’t heard from Italy about [X], but they’re getting ready for an audit.

B: Who’s doing the audit—Germany?

C: Weren’t they on the same side?