Jeff’s Journal

1) SARAH PALIN OMG.

2) Tonight we had Red Sox tickets. Earlier this week, Matsuzaka was the starter to be ready for. Then, two days ago, it was David Pauley, he of the 10.XX ERA. Today? Michael Bowden, pitching prospect, making his major league debut. Awesome - awesome game, awesome experience, and $6 parking.

3) Tomorrow, we’re surprising my Uncle Jeff, who I haven’t seen in about 5 years. He’s one of those close family friends who you end up calling uncle even though they’re not actually related, and we’ve swung in and out of contact with him over the years, and it turns out he’s staying about an hour away and my parents are visiting him right now and invited us up tomorrow. So that’ll be awesome. Very awesome.

Talk about a sea change in attitude.

I never lived in a dorm, and only spent a year in an apartment, so I never experienced the “fire alarm going off mere seconds before hopping into the shower” situation.

Fun times, really.

Thank you lady downstairs for burning your porkchops!

Ahhhhgfdgdfgdfgergbrbn.

1) Summer reading = over. A good summer, but also glad it’s over and I can somewhat relax again. I’m always amazed at how much I end up running on adrenaline rushes for a lot of stuff, and then I’m shocked when I’m exhausted at the end. I took Friday off, slept in, and pretty much stayed on the couch all day playing games.

2) Life doesn’t seem to want to slow down, either - we have a Red Sox game coming up, another weekend in Massachusetts, we still have to figure out when to see people we haven’t seen in a while, still house hunting. Why is life insane?

3) D&D was awesome on Sunday. We went Wyvern hunting, and did it well. Ann played her first week as a Dwarven Fighter, and was pulling action movie stunts almost immediately, and it was pretty awesome. Best battle I’ve been in since I’ve started playing, hands down.

4) Someone want to explain why Pac-Man: Championship Edition is so addicting? Anyone?

I hope to reach some sort of basic schedule again at some point this week. Business + craziness = no time for annoying people on the internets.

1) Another busy weekend. August is poo!

I shouldn’t say that - it was busy, but another generally fun weekend. We hit a movie on Friday, did an Irace family gathering in Maine followed by a stop at the Great Lost Bear and home on Saturday, and a Sox game on Sunday followed by dinner in Watertown with the D&D crew minus Billy.

1a) At the Sox game, I sat next to one of the crazier people I’ve ever encountered at a Sox game. He’s convinced there’s a massive conspiracy to oust all the nonwhite players a la the Yawkeys of old, that the games are fixed by the pitching coaches, etc. Stunning, really.

2) Downsides to the weekend? I’m probably more sunburnt right now than I’ve been in a very long time. I tried to be proactive, too, but my face is all bright red as well as the tops of my hands. Ah well. It’ll be a sore day or two I suppose, but the switch to a long-sleeve shirt paid some serious dividends.

3) This week’s the last week of summer reading. I don’t know if this has been more harrowing because of drama or just because, but I’ll be glad when it’s done nonetheless.

Enough for now.

Still recovering, in a way.

1) Saturday morning, we went up to Hillsboro to look at this house. Interestingly, I think Ann ended up liking it less than I did - the floor plan was great, and there was a lot to love, but there was also more we didn’t - for instance, the interesting choices the former owners made with things as simple as doors and flooring to more questionable issues like the converted shed-like structure in the back that was tilted at a 20 degree angle. Whether it would realistically pass inspection was another concern, but by the time we got around to thinking about that, I think our minds were made up. The location was pleasant if we were 10-15 years older, and it just wasn’t for us.

House hunting sucks.

2) We hit a small party with a former dodgeball teammate in Haverhill later that day - a ton of fun. Good group of people, good conversation, great food, and a really solid chance to reconnect with a couple people we lost track of. After the disappointment of the morning, that was a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon.

3) We then hit my friend Mel’s place for dinner and games with her boyfriend before crashing there. Always good to see her, nice to spend the morning in Worcester getting breakfast and again seeing how things change in such a crazy short time between visits. A good, relaxing evening, even if I did have a crappy game of Carcassonne.

4) In the morning, we grabbed breakfast at Culpepper’s and then headed off to D&D. One of our regulars in the group couldn’t attend, and Ann decided to give it a shot for the day. First, she did quite well - only dropping once (which was to be expected with the copious amounts of marking she was doing) and killing a few big baddies. She struggled a bit with the roleplaying aspect, but given that she discounts that as not really having an interest in the storyline at that point, it was a good day for her.

Not to speak for her, but I think she really liked it. Either that or her reading my Unicorn Slaying Handbook until 10:45 last night was simply a coincedence. That and she doesn’t think Bill’s table is big enough for a 7th player.

So we’ll see.

As for me, I didn’t die! Yay! I came close, but I was smarter and it worked. And now I have leather armor. Fear me.

Hopefully I can catch up more with life tonight.

Ann’s coming to D&D with me Sunday. She spent about an hour with the Player’s Handbook last night.

Ann: “The words in italics kind of confuse me, but they’re the only way I know what I’m doing.”
Jeff: “You can mostly ignore those, it’s just flavor text - roleplaying stuff.”
Ann: “You mean the text - is has a flavor?”

Later, she was reading over the paladin powers and tripped over Astral Speech:

Astral Speech
You speak with such compelling conviction that others find it difficult to refute your beliefs and claims.
Effect: You gain a +4 power bonus to Diplomacy checks until the end of the encounter.

Ann immediately turns to me and says “Hey, that’s what Obama has!”

A busy weekend coming up…

…but we may have found the house deal of the century.

…and it’s not a foreclosure.

…and it’s in a nice place.

…and it’s ridiculously priced for what it is.

Keeping my fingers firmly crossed.

1) So Ann is coming to D&D with me next week - Jenny can’t make it, and I’ve been trying to find an opening to have her try it. She mocks me about it plenty, but she’s actually been somewhat fascinated by the whole thing. We were talking about it over dinner tonight, and some good stuff came of that.

Ann: “So what’s her character?”
Jeff: “A minotaur.”
Ann: “A minotaur?! That’s, like, a horn away from unicorn!”

Ann: “So her minotaur, does she do anything?”
Jeff: “I think she might be playing a cleric” (note: the minotaur is a paladin)
Ann: “A clerk? Really? Do I get to process things?”

Note: She really thought I said “clerk.”

Jeff: “So yeah, you’re playing Jenny’s character, and she’s Mike’s wife.”
Ann: “Oh no! I only know him from pictures on the internet! Worlds colliding!”
Jeff: “He’s fine, you’ll like him.”
Ann: “Wait - if I’m playing his wife’s character, does that mean I have to sleep with him?”

In all seriousness, while Ann never pictured the day she’d be rolling dice for fun, she’s pretty excited to see how this goes down.

2) I also surprised her with Breaking Dawn today, since the waitlist at the library is crazy long. We ended up at Barnes and Noble at the same time this morning, and I was doing my best James Bond to stay out of her sight.

3) The Nashua Pride ballpark is really gorgeous. Just sayin’.

4) I’m so obsessed with 3oh!3 it’s not even funny:

Holla ’til you pass out.

After how down I felt about bizness in general, talk about needing a getaway of some sort. Luckily, this past weekend came at precisely the right time.

1) After work on Friday, I picked up Ann and we went to Old Orchard Beach in Maine. My parents rent a place up there for a week every year, and they invited us up, and we took them up on it.

I had never been to OOB. Ann spent time there as a kid, only living about 15-30 minutes from the area, but my treks north rarely left New Hampshire. It was entirely different than what I expected - more of a shoretown-type atmosphere with a random carnival in the middle than the spectacle that Hampton Beach or Wildwood provide - and that was kind of nice. It does have a bit of an older flair to it, though, which was different. The crowd may have been influenced by the people we were with - namely my parents - but it was more an interesting, unexpected thing than anything else.

I’ll say this much, though: bar-hopping with your parents is something everyone should try once. We ended up at this one bar (my mother insisted it was Irish, I’m convinced she thinks all bars are) that was essentially a fortysomething bar with the worst of the 80s and 90s pumping on the stereo. Patently absurd, Ann & I were the youngest people there by at least 15 years, and yet, in the end, it was totally awesome. If they had a better beer selection, it would have been even better. We hit a second beachside bar afterwards with a crappy cover band and a crappier drink selection before getting a slice of pizza at midnight and calling it an evening.

Apparently, it was correctional officer week at OOB, though - my father must have known about 30 people at the various places we ended up. Completely weird.

2) Saturday, we went from OOB to Little Sebago Lake to see Ann’s mother’s family. My parents came, since they were only 40 minutes out as it were, and it was a good time as usual. It’s always interesting to see them because we don’t see them much, so it’s hard for me to keep track, but year. We were there 6 hours or so and then came home, caught a late movie, and yeah.

3) Sunday was D&D day. After the rough grind of the session prior, I know I was looking forward to better results this go ’round. So, naturally, I end up the target of two hobgoblin archers and nearly get myself killed. Again. Never mind that I had cover and threw a shield up, I just got absolutely pummelled. I know there’s an aspect of “Wizard: You’re Doing It Wrong” if I keep dying like this, but this felt like total dumb luck.

Regardless, a VERY fun session yesterday for no specific reason, except that I feel it was fun and that’s what matters. We left things on a very interesting note, which is great, and yeah. I’m really excited about the upcoming game. As long as I don’t keep dragging everyone else down what with the dying and stuff…

Why did I wait until I was 27 to pick this up?

4) Upcoming plans: househunting tonight, gatherings galore in the next few weeks, work, life, etc.

In no particular order. Ann went to visit Boston, so I largely had to make do on my own, which was cool.

1) Seeing Lee Anne. We were trying to figure something out all week, and finally she just decided to come up to Manchester and hang, which was great. We hit the local bar/food joint of choice where I had fried pickles for the first time - they were AMAZING. We also wandered around Manchester proper a bit and hit an Arena Football game, which was all sorts of weird and awesome all at once. Even without all the fun stuff on the side, spending an afternoon with Lee Anne is always a good thing. Adding fried pickles to the mix just makes it that much better.

2) Nerd Alert #1: Civilization Revolution came out this week. I love the PC series, and they made a console version which is pretty great, if not a little flawed in places. But I did pick it up and was able to save $20 on it with some skillful eBaying, so that’s good.

3) D&D yesterday. I’d say that the rounds we had yesterday were probably my first experience with some significant grinding - a couple tough battles combined with some difficult preparation for a confusing magical item. It was the first time my relative newbieness really reared its head, as I was both trying to do things that didn’t work, made things a little more complicated than they needed to be in some places, and didn’t quite catch onto another idea Mike had in one battle where we were getting more than a little punished until it was almost too late. Still a fun afternoon, but yikes. Still, the whole episode opened up a few cans of worms, and has completely opened up a new idea for my character I hadn’t thought of. So that’s something.

Ironically, the punishment debacle in the second battle? My character didn’t take any damage. Granted, I’m playing a wizard controller-type, which means I’m not supposed to get into the melee, but there was something annoyingly amusing about that - annoying for everyone who nearly died, amusing to me. Then again, if any of my dice rolls decided to work properly in that battle…

A shaming exercise, because I have been slacker extraordinaire over the last week, moreso than usual.

Things to Do Before Sunday:

* Finish updating all D&D stuff before Sunday gaming. Tonight is a good night to do that, with no Red Sox and no wife. This includes, but is not limited to, adding information to the group wiki as not to put Bill at a disadvantage, and getting my level 2 character sheet finished up for quick transition when I theoretically level up on Sunday.

* Reply to e-mails. Three in particular that I’ve put off more than 7 days, which is unacceptable in every way.

* Clean my desk. I don’t normally get bothered by the desk situation at home, but I’m at critical mass and can’t operate.

Things to Accomplish Before the End of July:

* Consistency: For every political blog I put up, write a non-political one. I’ve meant to do this anyway, but I haven’t been, and keeping myself on a tighter schedule is important, and it’ll annoy fewer people as well.

* Actually visit some houses and get paperwork rolling. Less looking online, more looking in person, stat! We’ve seen two houses(!) we like, and one condo which is still on the market from the last discussion, so why lollygag?

Things to Improve as Time Rolls Along:

* Contact. I’ve gotten better, but not great - it dawned on me this week, for instance, that the last time I saw Georgy was last August. That’s a bit ridiculous, and there’s no excuse for that. I’m guilty across the board - Lee Anne and I haven’t seen each other since hockey season, I don’t make it to Worcester as often as I should, etc. I know I keep saying I need to change that, but I need to change that. If I can find time twice a month to get into a game, I can find a couple hours to meet up with people for drinks after work or something, bare minimum.

* Get to work! The book has fallen by the wayside and that’s bad. I’m capable of spending 15 minutes a night compiling research and sending e-mails right now, which is where I need to be, so I just have to DO IT. Enough nonsense.

Things seem to happen in weird waves, I guess.

1) I came down with…something last week. Your typical cold, runny nose, hacking up a lung thing with a little digestive irritation to boot. There was some minor fear that Liz infected half the universe with whatever she has/had, given that I know at least a half dozen other people who had a similar thing, but my throat stopped being sore and now I just cough and poop a lot. I’ll be better, for sure, but I’ve gone through so many tissues lately it’s ridiculous.

2) The 4th was fun - Ann & I ended up in a parade in Amherst, NH, for the summer reading program. The Amherst librarians did a book cart drill team, which was fun, and we got to lead the charge and make sure no one ran into the shriners. We then spent most of the day with Jackie and her husband and their friends, playing Guitar Hero and French bocce ball and just having a good time. We pretty much bonded instantly with their friends, which was a great feeling and made the day that much better. I knew things would rock once we met people up here.

3) Sunday, I headed down to Somerville to help out Chelsea with her entry for a short film competition. The initial plan was to hit Somerville, run my shots, and head to Worcester, but the Worcester plans fell through (which is why I didn’t get ahold of you, Georgy - I was right down the street, too), so I ended up hanging a bit and lending a hand where I could. Chelsea needed me to play a Tom Lehrer-type, which was both wicked fun and rekindled my joy for Lehrer. I did have to lose the beard, so I’m facially nude for the next week, but it was totally worth it - Chelsea totally knows what she’s doing and what she wants, and she pulled together a great group, and now I’m all creatively inspired and stuff again. So awesome. So thanks for the opportunity, I can’t wait to see the final result.

4) Outside of all this business, life feels rushed, but sane. I finally feel like a routine is coming back again, the finances are finally normal and the only downer is that the Tampa Bay Rays are for real.

That’s not a bad shake, all things considered.

I woke up too late to do anything of civic value this morning.

1) A great time Saturday night with old friends I hadn’t seen in 8+ years. In a lot of ways, it was like we hadn’t missed a beat, except that there was a baby in the mix. Excellent times.

2) First session of the new D&D campaign. My character (hey, Mike, should I upload information about him on the Wiki?) nearly died due to a band of orcs, and we were cavalier with innocent life, and it was awesome. Waiting two weeks for the next session kinda sucks. Stupid holidays.

Also, I rewrote my character sheet so I could fit it in a binder with all the other stuff I need. Ann got ahold of my old sheet, and decided to mess with it a bit, not realizing that I had redone it. Thus, my Eladrin Wizard’s personality traits include “compulsive masturbator,” “armpit fetish,” and “speaks in five letter words only.” Then again, she calls my player’s handbook my “Unicorn Slaying Guide.” Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be convincing her to come along to a game anytime soon, heh.

…it’s that we can never find non-frosted brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts anywhere. It’s like they just don’t distribute up here, forcing us to stock up on the rare occasions that the supermarket has a few, and always leaving me hungry on those Sunday mornings where I want breakfast, but there’s no milk or eggs or POP TARTS so I’m forced to go hungry until I get some clothes on and get out of the house.

Grr.

EDIT: OH MY GOD YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE TO POP TARTS.

1) So my grandfather’s wake/funeral went by fairly easily. Again - still uncomfortable with the entire idea. Still thinking a lot of is superfluous, still a little angry about how the Catholic funeral mass seems to not really be about the deceased at all. There was the requisite family drama to go along with anything else (short answer: my grandfather was apparently quite the pimp), but we spent late Thursday night with my cousins and aunts, just hanging around and catching up. Really good quality time. My cousin wrote a song for the burial which was actually fairly perfect, and that was that.

I won’t go into my rant about funerals and death and the complete insanity that seems to go along with it right now. Ann & I essentially made a pact to not be like that when we eventually have to bury each other. But yikes.

2) Saturday night was a lot more fun than I anticipated. We met up with Liz for her thirtieth birthday in Boston at one of the weirder restaurants in town, Eastern Standard, with a menu full of raw foods and livestock brains. Very weird. Along for the ride was Sarah, a pleasant surprise, and a number of Liz’s friends including Deb and a Beth who’s LJ I don’t know and Courtney. The place was quite nice, the conversation great, and we probably would have stayed longer if we could have. I didn’t even gag when I saw the brains! I win!

3) Sunday, my father came up for a father’s day/birthday thing - we got great seats for the Sea Dogs/Fisher Cats game. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate and it ended up being rained out. We went out for barbecue at a local place afterwards, my father napped on the couch for an hour, and then went home. It was a good afternoon, all things considered.

4) Ann was also able to get Red Sox tickets for last night. Needless to say, I was getting tired from the weekend already, and with summer reading kicking off this week, I told her to bring her friend Christina. So they went, had a good time, I caught up on stuff here. Not a bad night, actually, although I did stay up waaaaaay too late.

5) This weekend is a blast from my past - we’re having a big ol’ get together with the old friends I fell out of touch with from high school. All my fault, and we’re having a mini-reunion of sorts. I’m ridiculously excited about the whole thing. A long time coming.

6) Barring any natural disasters, we start the major D&D campaign this weekend. I’m actually ridiculously excited about this, too - I’ve been spending a pretty sad amount of time poring over the Player’s Handbook and seeing what works, tweaking my character, etc. Since (I think) everyone in the campaign reads this in some form, I’m not sure how much is reasonable to divulge, but I think my character is going to be pretty fun. I bought a big bag of dice and everything!

Okay. That’s it for now.

1) I’m so excited about getting rolling on our D&D, I could pee. I’ve been going back and forth on e-mail with Bill, who’s DMing the game, on character stuff and whatnot. I got the handbook about a week ago and I’m just having a blast with the whole thing. I have to say - playing with the 3.0/3.5 books threw me for a loop, and I never came close to getting a grasp on anything, but it’s much, much easier in this edition to catch on. Not to say I haven’t made my share of mistakes already, but I feel like the entire thing is pretty simple.

I got a big bag o’ dice, which is a fun little addition. eBay is funny like that, I suppose. If you need any miniature 6 sided dice, let me know.

2) Funeral is on Friday. We’ll probably head down tomorrow night. Not sure yet.

3) Because I should, a meme:

a) First Name: Jeff

b) Age: 27

c) Location: Fabulous Manch-Vegas. Manchester, NH

d) Occupation: Children’s librarian! 18 months and running!

e) Partner?: Ann. 15 months and running! And I still kinda like her! d;-)

f) Kids: I sure hope not.

g) Brothers/Sisters: My brother Kyle is 24 now, has his own place in Millbury, my old hometown. We exchange lolcats on MySpace a lot, but he seems to be doing well when we do talk.

h) Pets: Pigeon, the kitty. She’s been extra cute the last few days, too. She also wanted to play with the minature 6 sided dice.

i) List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life:

- Work. Because work is work, and it’s hard, but it’s great. And summer reading. Yeah.
- The book. Because I keep stalling on it, and then life happens, and then I remember it and get angry that I’m putting things off.
- Life. It’s a copout answer, but life is very big for me right now.

j) Where and for what did you go to school for?:

Anna Maria College, Paxton MA, class of 2003. Went in as a music major, went out a history/political science major, using little of it.

k) Parents?

Two, still. Heh. My father is coming toward the end of his tenure at the prison - one of the good guys, not the guy behind bars. We continue to have a better relationship than we ever did during my more formative years, and that’s a good thing.

My mother is doing well. It’s hard to judge properly being away, but “is doing well” feels right.

l) Who are some of your closest friends?

At this point, we’ve finally become close to a local couple, also a librarian. We’re still quite close with Michelle and Josh and we’re long overdue in seeing them, and it’s just like old times whenever we catch up with Julia and Tiff and the like. So it’s been decent, all things considered.

He was 94.

I’m not sad, per se - one, he was 94, lived a fairly rich life, had 14 kids, etc etc. I’m sad in the way that death is sad, that my father has no surviving parents anymore. Etc.

Death is still weird, though. I don’t know how to explain my relationship to it at this point, except that it’s weird and I don’t like the concept of funerals and yeah.

So this will be an interesting week.

1) Stimulus check arrived and deposited. Of course, $1000 of it was spent already on bills and taxes, so there’s $200 left - oh, whoops, Ann’s starter in her car went. Starter + tow + labor = a hair more than $200, for sure.

Sigh.

2) Even with that minor setback, this looks very, very enticing.

With all the stuff flying through my head, I wish I wasn’t so hot and lethargic. Eventually I’ll catch up on the personal front. Quick hits:

1) It’s the kind of hot where you take a shower at 7:20, look in the mirror at 8:30, and you’d never know you actually showered by looking, and you feel all gross and sweaty already. I usually have good heat tolerance - not today.

2) Firefox 3 Beta is nice, but the sooner they can get the session recovery working on it, the better.

3) Massachusetts folks - in the off chance you’re not working this Friday, or even get an hour for lunch, Ann & I will be in Central Mass for the morning to the mid-afternoon. Let us know if you’re around/available/whatever.

4) As excited as I am for this week, it’s going to be way too busy - a tough short work week, followed by the Sox game, followed by R.E.M. in Mansfield, followed by an Irace-side family party, followed by Sunday work. Gah!

5) Healing teeth = weird.

1) First, a meme. Don’t feel like tagging, but list 8 things people may not know. These are always hard for me because I lay so much out there as is, but it’s been a while, so…

a) For a long time, I couldn’t stop a book after starting it. My tolerance level has shifted dramatically in a short time - if a book doesn’t hook me in quickly, I’m generally not going to finish it. I have no clue what caused that shift.

b) I’m currently looking at my desk at home (it’s 10pm on Tuesday) and I’m shocked - I cleaned this before my wisdom teeth thing, and within 7 days, it’s possibly worse than it was before. Unopened mail, CDs to listen to and mail out, etc. It’s incredible, my ability to accumulate stuff.

c) I’ve been picking up my guitar a lot more lately, and I feel like I’m making some minor breakthroughs in ability. Not so much where I’m going to be more than above competent, but better than I’ve ever felt in the 10 years I’ve been playing now.

d) I find it odd that I have so much nostalgia for 1990s alt rock, yet dislike most grunge and was a little too young to truly appreciate it.

e) One of the best things I’ve done for myself the last few years is fully embracing my inner nerd. I wish I had done it in high school - it couldn’t have gotten much worse for me socially as a whole anyway, and it would have saved me a lot of strife in college.

f) I have no clue why I’m so bad at e-mailing.

g) As bad as I am at e-mailing, I’m worse with the phone. Still.

h) I still regret too much. I think I always will, no matter how happy I am with my lot in life.

2) My first day back to work was interesting on a number of levels, but keeping it on a health note - wow. I was wiped by the end of the day. It’s amazing how something so small as this can really throw you off your game. My jaw was really killing me by the end of the day, my voice was really ragged and shaky beyond the compensating and the remnants of the cold/allergy battle, and yeah. Wow. If I wasn’t so damn busy with summer stuff, I might have considered going home, but I barely convinced myself to stay home on Monday. Working through things is good, I suppose.

3) I’ve been following R.E.M. setlists since the tour started and since my show is next week - the lists are VERY impressive. plenty of Accelerate, of course, but they’re pulling out a lot of great old stuff. “Heron House,” “Ignoreland,” “Circus Envy,” and “Pretty Persusion” are all songs I’ve wanted to hear live and that have shown up on lists, “Ignoreland” being a staple thus far. I’m still pulling for “Auctioneer” and now perhaps wishing for “9-9″ isn’t completely out of the question. One week! ONE WEEK!

4) So I was, uh, able to see the 4th edition D&D player’s manual. They’ve done a LOT of streamlining, but I can’t say I miss too much from what I knew of 3.0/3.5. I still wish I could play as a multiclassed bard, but I think my understanding of things has opened up a decent idea for a character. If I have any real disappointment with it early, it’s that the alignment structure has changed - if i’m reading this correctly, no more chaotic good? We’re stuck on only neutral (or, in 4e terms, “unaligned”)? That’s kind of crappy, but it also fits in with some of the said streamlining. Regardless, I find it difficult to work off of PDF files, and I hope once I get the book in my hand, I can work some other stuff out on my own.

Given that the 4e book has leaked, we did work with it more in our game on Sunday, and to great result. It, again, helps that we have a really great group going, but everything moves incredibly smoothly with it, and yeah. I’m gushing a bit, I suppose - we’re halting the pre-made campaign after this weekend, and then two weeks off before we dive into the long-term. I can’t wait.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got. Enough outta me.

So let’s see:

1) Try not to catch a cold when trying to recover from wisdom tooth extraction. It’s no fun.

2) Pain is slowly fading. Percoset makes me feel like a zombie, but my mouth can only open wide enough for eggs, so…

3) For the amount of bitching I’m doing about this, I’d hate to see how much I devolve into a small child if I ever have to have real surgery. I was a pathetic human being last night.

I’m hoping for a bit of a turning point today. We’ll see.

I’m doing okay.

I say okay because a) the surgery went great, and b) I’m in pretty sizeable pain right now and the percoset doesn’t appear to be doing much for it at the moment. I also have a pollen-allergy-induced headache which is complicating matters for pain, but other than that…

The actual procedure was funny - conked out in 30 seconds, out for about 45, remember NOTHING. That’s what I’m talking about.

The bleeding is weird.

I dunno, that’s it for now - time for some soup and to lay down more.

Ann hit Massachusetts for a wedding and friends and babysitting (oh my), leaving me to my own devices this weekend. Good times!

1) Ann left Saturday morning, and I decided once the cat woke me up at 8:30 that I was going to try and be as unproductive as possible for once. I’m proud to say I generally succeeded - I took a shower and ate, but I was otherwise completely lazy: playing video games, catching up on the stack of CDs I’ve been meaning to listen to, listing some stuff on eBay and Amazon, watch a couple things on demand - exactly the kind of day I ultimately needed.

2) Yesterday was the inaugural of a new D&D group I’m involved with, this time with people I’ve known in various ways for a while. The Fourth Edition is coming out in a few weeks, and a pregenerated campaign was put out to help familiarize/transition to the new rules and such. Having very little experience overall with the older editions, this essentially was starting from square one for me, except that I knew the basics of the basics. So even with some tolerant hand-holding from all involved, I feel like I was getting a pretty good grasp on things to the point where the final battle we faced (and we ran 5 battles over the 8ish-hour period, which was AWESOME) I was essentially able to work on my own without asking too many questions or screwing up to the point of almost getting killed, which was great.

I have to say, though - holy shit did that kick ass. Excuse me as I completely lose any mainstream cool cred, but if I had realized it was this much fun, I would have tried harder to get into a group in high school and not blown Steph off 5 years ago when she tried to get me in on a game back then. As a timesuck, the time flew by like nothing else. I arrived at 1:30 and we essentially dove right in, and I looked at my watch and it was 3:30. Just like that. I was pretty surprised, but hey, that’s how it goes. Beyond that, it’s really great - coming at it from no significant battle experience in my limited D&D encounters before, diving in and nuking some kobolds is amazingly easy. I played a human wizard, and the level one spells are actually worth using. You have your basic magic missile, but you can actually give cold/fire/acid damage early, and have it mean something. Plus, the wizard has a Scorching Burst which is essentially a low level tactical nuke - by the time I got the hang of it, I was able to nuke 5 guys on one spell with the correct positioning, and the one time I was able to use Burning Hands was pretty nifty, too.

One thing I didn’t expect, however, was the fun tactical maneuvers we were able to pull off. Mike (who’s a very fun guy and I’m especially looking forward to gaming with him) worked out a pretty great pincer technique on one encampment that worked wonders (especially since a rogue/warlord battle combo appears to be potentially devastating), and the smooth battle system (which appears to be much smoother than previous incarnations) really speeds things up. In a word, friggin’ awesome.

So the group appears likely to be myself and Mike, Mike’s wife Jenny (who is wonderful), Steph, Mandy, her brother Bill, and Mandy’s husband Bill running the eventual full-scale campaign. I’m very, very excited.

3) I’m also home today, and so is Ann. So we’ll probably do something, whether it’s hit a movie (Young @ Heart is up at the indie theater in Concord) or grab lunch somewhere or just hang out, but another wide-open day isn’t a bad thing before the next few weeks come barreling in…

This is actually serious:

You: Of legal driving age, free on Sunday, 1 June for most of the day. Likes to eat, meet people they don’t know, and can stand multiple hours of me in a car.

Me: Jeff, aged 27, 3 days out of having four wisdom teeth extracted. Likely to be hopped up on percoset, and equally likely to have not eaten anything resembling real food in days. Has good music taste.

Essentially, I’m looking for someone who might be willing to cart me around a bit on Sunday, 1 June. By “a bit,” I mean to Somerville for a birthday brunch, followed by a trip into Worcester for something else, followed by a trip home for me. Payment includes brunch on me and some gas money, plus my adoration and company.

If you’re willing/able, let me know. No pressure - it’s why I’m posting it here as opposed to begging all my friends individually and feeling like I’m guilting them into it.

Please turn your attention to panel four of Questionable Content this evening.

That line by Hannelore (the blond one) about “highly-trained actors?” Totally was something I had convinced myself of in various forms until close to the end of my senior year of high school. In fact, I was thinking about that again today in a short fit of insecurity.

I mean, yes, completely ridiculous, but I have never actually seen it stated elsewhere before. Ever.

…unless my parents paid Jeph Jacques to write this comic…

I woke up this morning feeling a little ill and with a small headache. Given the wisdom teeth situation, headaches are a norm for the moment, but the stomach thing, not so much. By the time I got ready for work, the headache was much worse and my stomach felt like it was going to cause a small-scale revolt.

Needless to say, I went to work, suffered some dizzy spells, my head is pounding, and my stomach hates me, and I’m back home.

Minor flu bug or whatever aside, I’m glad I only have to put up with a couple more weeks of this bullshit.

Jeff: “Ooh! They’re making a Captain America movie!”
Ann: *silence*
Jeff: “…and that’s really exciting! And the guy who played Jayne on Firefly is attached to play him!”
Ann: “Oh, I can see that. I liked the red.”
Jeff: “…huh?”
Ann: “The red. Fire.”
Jeff: “What?”
Ann: “Oh, shit. I thought you were talking about Captain Planet.”

Then a discussion commenced about the following, which input would be appreciated:

1) Is Captain Planet really a super hero?

2) Is Captain Planet simply propaganda masked in colorful animation?

3) Ann: “Would Captain America help his wife clean the fucking kitchen?”

Apparently, my e-mail address gets to be the “sent” address in a variety of spam today. Thus, I’ve gotten roughly 400 undeliverable bouncebacks since 8am this morning with no end in sight.

Ugh.

Mario Kart anyone? 2707-2006-6250

For those of you who don’t wanna play, I offer this:

1) Tiff’s wedding was this weekend. Between the whole “blast from the past” wedding mass with Fr. Madden (former High School headmaster) presiding and the somewhat sketchball wedding band, it was a very nice wedding and a good time. I wish I had more to say about the wedding/ceremony than I do, but I don’t - congrats to Tiff and Rob in any regard.

2) We ended up crashing at my old place last night, and Ann & I slept nearly 11 hours on a futon. I can’t remember the last time I slept 11 hours period, but there you have it. We rushed out to Maxwell Silverman’s in Worcester for a pricey-but-worth-every-penny brunch with Julia, Danielle, Steph and Steph’s sister, where I ate more bacon than I should have, but what else is new? It’s good to see people, anyway.

3) Annoying guitar note - I’ve been picking up my guitar a lot more lately, in part because I’m somewhat obsessed with getting a cover version floating in my head onto some sort of recording, but a problem that I forgot about has been picking itself back up as of late - cramping. My hands are small, but not THAT small, and yet whenever I do any non-open chords, my hand invariably cramps up. Part of it may be that I’m simply using too much force in holding the frets down or whatever, but it’s crazy frustrating.

4) My face hurts. I’m very apprehensive about the removal of the wisdom teeth, but damn will I appreciate not having face/headaches almost daily from them.

All for now…