The many talents of ninjas

It turns out that not only do ninjas flip out and kill people, they answer questions and even rob gas stations.

Iron man movie

I just tracked down the trailer for the Iron Man movie (due out next May). It looks pretty cool. Not as cool as transformers, but still pretty cool.

Ptolus Evolved updates

I just posted a mountain of information to the Ptolus DMing messageboards.

We'll see if I'm laughed off the intarwebz.

Back again

Well, that went quickly. I just noticed I haven't blogged in two months. I'm clearly not doing too well with those resolutions.

In the last two month I have (in no particular order)

• Worked like crazy to hit a deadline
• Missed that deadline anyway
• Gone to Gen Con
• Caught a case of the creeping con crud
• Played a few XBox 360 demos
• Started my Ptolus Evolved campaign --we made up characters last week!
• Seen the movie Stardust
• Seen Transformers for the 2nd time
• Bought a copy of HeroLab and started modifiying it for use with Arcana Evolved
• Read some of the stuff I got at Gen Con (mostly the free adventures from Goodman Games)
• Starting reading the last Harry Potter book
• Finished it by listening to it on CD

Also, for the record, the Stranglehold demo is awesome. The game looks to be so awesome as to be unfair to other games. You're playing through a John Woo action movie as Chow Yun-Fat. How can that not be awesome?

Transformers: The Movie

I just got back from seeing Transformers.

This movie is so awesome it's unfair to all the other summer blockbusters.

Seriously.

On a scale of 1 to awesome

The self destruct button ranks right up there with the USB Missle Launcher.

Our Domestic Explorer

Harley strikes again!

Frangelica and I have our own space --we've taken over the basement of the new place. The basement has acoustic tiles in the ceiling. We put Cinnamon's litter box in a closet. The closet doesn't have a ceiling.

See where this is going?

Yesterday I pulled Harley out of the ceiling.

So awesome.

The Martian Has Landed

We're in our new place in Kansas. We have all of our stuff. We still have 2 rooms left to paint.

Also, Live Free Or Die Hard is awesome. It's exactly what it needed to be --nothing more, nothing less.

Welcome to Kansas

Recently we've allowed evolution to be taught again!

So far I have seen a giant inflatable ape, a giant inflatable dinosaur, and a giant inflatable toilet.

Yes, a giant inflatable toilet.

So awesome.

Game collection

I just sold a big chunk of my RPG collection. The deal worked out to $1.78 per pound cash, or $2.32 per pound if you include the store credit I'm getting for the shipping costs. If I had taken the store credit only deal it would have been $3.24 per pound (including the extra credit from shipping).

For the record, I'm happy with it. Everything I sold is stuff that I haven't used in quite a while, if ever. I'd rather the games go to someone who will use and enjoy them.

Computer opposites

We're lucky we weren't sucked into some kind of PC/Mac vortex.

Dire Boar

Or possibly something out of Princess Mononoke.

Regardless, I vote that we give Alabama back to the animals before they take it back en masse.

Here's the story.

And now for the hard part

I really wanted to title this post, "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb" for no good reason, other than that batman quote has been one of many random things running through my head for the past few weeks.

A lot has happened since my last entry. We've sold the house in Illinois and bought a new one in Kansas. The block is finally lifted and we can start working on the impending doom that's been, um, impending for a while. That is, we finally get to start packing.

Naturally, we sold the house as soon as I left to go back to Virginia for a couple of days. When I got on the plane the house had not sold. When I stepped off the plane it had. Had I known that in order to sell the house I would have to leave the state I would have left long ago.

Otherwise Frangelica had a birthday. We threw a party for her a few weeks after the fact. By "we" I mean "I paid for a chunk of it and Frangelica made all the arrangements, including getting the decorations, setting up the decorations, and inviting everyone."

In the meantime I've been reading a ton of books. I've chewed through at least 6 in as many weeks. I recently started on the Dresden Files series. I picked them up because of the show on the sci-fi channel. While I like the TV show, the books are better. That's not a surprise. I haven't seen the whole series, though, just a few episodes. I'm up to book 4.

Oh yeah, apparently there's going to be a RPG.

I've also been chewing through various Warhammer books (the fiction kind, not the gaming kind).

Anyway, I haven't been posting because my stress level has been high, and I just haven't felt like being on the PC much.

At least now we can get started with moving. As of mid June I'll be a Kansas resident once again. I'm looking forward to it.

Oh yeah, in a couple of weeks I'll turn 4 years past unemployable.

This also means that I need to get to work on a new Ptolus game.

Off to pack!

Yet more showings

It's nearly a month since my last post and still no offers on the house. Showings have been crazy though. Tomorrow, for example, we have 3 scheduled. Now if we could just get someone to make an offer...

Furniture Fortitude

Two posts in one day. It' clearly a sign of the apocalypse.

When Frangelica and I moved out here we put our fancy new sofa and chez lounge in storage.

Naturally, it flooded, and the cushions have some water damage. I didn't have them professionally cleaned. The pieces themselves have stayed in the storage facility. It doesn't have any standing water in it or anything, but it is humid.

Today I called to see about getting the cushions cleaned. After all, I sprung for the warranty.

Problem 1: The chain we bought the pieces from (The Room Store) doesn't have any stores where I live now.

Problem 2: The warranty doesn't cover flooding damage, nor does it cover damage caused in storage.

Problem 3: They discontinued the pieces, so we can't order new cushions.

Right. Expensive (to us) furniture potentially down the tubes.

Our options at this point are:

1. Get the pieces (and cushions) cleaned and hope for the best.
2. Clean the pieces and try to find some other way to replace the cushions.
3. Trash the pieces and start at square one

I've talked to a professional furniture cleaner and he suggested at the very least replacing the cushions. He said that if mold is deep in the cushions they can't get it out.

I don't like any of the options. I think option 1 is out because I have allergies and I don't want to risk mold being in the pieces/cushions. Option 2 is also risky because of there possibly being mold in the pieces themselves. Option 3 makes me sad because we really liked those pieces and they were a bit pricey (for us).

Decisions, decisions.

Crazy Realtors

The house has been up now for a couple of weeks and we've been showing it like mad. Last weekend we had a lot of showings.

Saturday morning we had someone over to clean the house to prepare for an open house on Sunday. At 9:30 I got a phone call from the realtor. The nice woman asked me if anyone had contacted me about a showing at 10:15. I said no. I told her we had someone there cleaning the house and as much as I wanted to say yes, we couldn't possibly be out of the house in 45 minutes. However, if she wanted to come see the house at noon that would be fine.

The nice lady from the realtor hung up. I was expecting a call back about a showing.

Instead, at 10:15 we get a knock at the door. It's the Crazy Realtor (whom I will call CR --she's not the same person who called me). CR is there with a couple in tow. Could they please see the outside of the house? CR said the couple was trying to decide between our house and one other, and they wanted to decide today. My mother told her we were in the process of cleaning the place, and she could look at the outside all she liked. If she wanted to come back at 11, she could see the inside. CR agreed.

We scrambled and managed to get the dog tranquilized, got the house clean, and sent my Grandmother off to her hair appointment.

When we returned at about noon there was no indication that CR had been there. Realtors are supposed to leave cards when they show the place. We don't know if CR showed up or not.

So, my mother calls our Realtor, Darcy. Darcy is great. We're very happy with her.

Darcy said that CR is known for muscling her way in to showings --for saying anything she has to in order to get her folks in to see houses, including that there might be an offer on the table shortly. Not only that, but CR had called Darcy Friday night to set up the showing and Darcy told her no, and that she could come back on Sunday between 2 and 4.

So CR called the office directly. When we said no then, she just showed up and told us a story about a possible offer.

Right. We won't be holding our breath for that particular offer.

Sunday we had 2 showings and an open house. The first people were late getting to the house --they showed up an hour and a half late to look at the house. We had already left and come back, and I was out scavenging for lunch for everyone. But it's all good. They looked at the house with Frangelica, my grandmother and our two dogs on site. They stayed for all of 3 minutes. One person didn't get out of their car.

We won't be holding our breath waiting on that offer either.

The other showing and the open house went very well. The open house was supposed to go from 2 to 4, but everyone didn't clear out until 4:30.

Hopefully we'll hear something soon.

Everyone cross your fingers and hope for a good offer.

And while you're at it, hope for less Crazy Realtors.

Selling a house

The house finally went up yesterday.

I have been around when we sold houses before but I don't remember much from the experiences. Just getting this house ready to sell has been painful. We have cleaned, sorted, and packed a crazy amount of stuff.

What I find most stressful now is keeping the house in a "model" state. "Model" means "unlivable." That is, we can't have anything personal --no family pictures, etc. We can't have anything that illustrates a shortcoming of the house.

For example, our tiny bathroom has a tiny shower. The tiny shower only has a soap dish. It doesn't have any room for things regular humans need --like shampoo and conditioner. So, we have to keep our hair care products in a box, and only take them out when we shower.

All of us here are really hoping the house sells soon. We joke about the "model" house and the "fictitious family" that lives there. The fictitious family doesn't have hair, for example. The fictitious family has one cat (not 2 cats and 2 dogs). The fictitious family doesn't read, or at least doesn't have many books. Bookshelves, after all, are used for tasteful displays of cute but generic chotchkes.

I don't know how long my sanity or my job can take this. Working at home and showing a house are not really compatible. Still, the house only went up yesterday. We have already had one couple come look at it. Someone else is coming tomorrow morning. Hopefully the house will sell soon and we'll be able to start moving forward with the rest of the packing and getting a new house.

Boo for packing!

I made a lot of progress this weekend. I have 3.5 fileboxes of books, DVDs, and games listed on half.com. I have another 3 or 4 file boxes worth of books that are outright going to Titan Games. I also have a small pile of CDs that are going to CD Source. And I have a few book boxes worth of stuff that's packed away and ready to move.

Damn, I have a lot of stuff. And most of this is out of storage. I still have the stuff in the house to go through. The stuff in the house has to be sorted and packed in the next week and a half. The rest of the stuff in storage needs to be sorted and re-packed sometime after that.

I also found out that I can comfortably fit at least 18 file boxes in my car and still see clearly out all the windows.

Now, I'm tired. I'm going to do something brainless for a while. Maybe Neverwinter Nights 2, or Reaxxion.

Kansas City Bound

It's official. My mother has a new job in the Kansas City area, and Frangelica and I will be headed out there. My mother is leaving in mid April, and Frangelica and I will follow after either the semester is over or the house here sells, whichever comes later.

I'm looking forward to moving back to Kansas. I lived there for a long time. So much so that I tell people that's where I'm from, even though technically I was born elsewhere. Kansas just feels like home.

Fortunately it appears that I'll be able to keep my job, so long as Kansas has modern amenities like indoor toilets and the InTaRwEbZ.

Hooray for modern conveniences!

Boo for packing!

SETI at home as a security device

Apparantly SETI at home hasn't found any aleins, but it has tracked down a stolen laptop.