December 13, 2007: D&D and Apple Pie

On my way home from work last night I stopped by at Borders on Broadway and picked up the D&D Basic Game Starter Pack and the D&D Player’s Kit at well which gave us an extra set of dice, a solo adventure for Dominica to play through and her own copy of the Player’s Handbook. The book alone is worth the price of the pack (although normally the book is hardcover and this is softcover but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing) plus it came with a set of miniatures. So I thought that they were a good deal as they each had some components that I was interested in getting that covered most of the price and they would be good learning tools for Dominica.

The real reason that I went to Borders was to get the next book in the series that I am reading, “Exile” by R. A. Salvatore, but it turned out to be the only book of the series that they didn’t have. But then I noticed that they did have the “complete series” in a single book which was only barely more expensive that buying the two remaining books alone. So I just grabbed that – “The Dark Elf Trilogy“. The larger book will be harder to carry to read on the train but getting the books that way is much cheaper and I only have to worry about getting them one third as often.

I stopped at the McDonald’s in Newark Penn Station to surprise Dominica with dinner and then walked home. It was so warm this evening that I had to carry my coat everywhere and even then I was far too warm. My brief time outside between locations wasn’t enough to cool me off at all. I even had my sleeves rolled up! And it is December.

We ate dinner while watching Are You Being Served? in our bedroom and then opened up Dominica’s new D&D packs so that she could see the miniatures and the dice and all of the stuff that she got. She was very excited. We stopped watching television to play through the very short solo adventure that came with the Player’s Kit. It was very silly and incredibly short but it was a good learning tool I guess. We are hoping to get to try the starter adventure that comes with the Basic Game soon. It should have good learning tools in it as well including how to use the miniatures in the game and the dungeon tiles.

Dominica went to bed a bit before me. I stayed up reading “Exile” for quite a while.

I am working from home this morning as the weather is supposed to be really awful and when I work from home Oreo is able to stay home from daycare allowing Dominica to only have to drive about half the distance that she normally has to drive. And I don’t have to walk a long way in the sleet too. That would be crappy.

My job for the day involves getting the house clean for the D&D game that will be here tonight. Everyone is attempting to make it over here around six although the weather might make that a bit difficult. If the weather was good Dominica could be here around five forty but six might be pretty ambitious. I am sure that we will order in dinner tonight.

The snow and sleet started in Newark at a quarter after ten in the morning. Driving is not going to be fun for those stuck out in it.

I got all of the dishes done quite early this morning which was quite the accomplishment. With those done and out of the way I could focus on the real cleaning to be done for the rest of the day. Having so many people over to our apartment recently has really made for a regular regimen of cleaning and it shows. There isn’t so much to be done anymore and what is done is more thorough.

At eleven the snow started and it was so dark outside that I had to turn on some lights in the apartment to be able to see properly. It was a serious snow storm. We are expected to get six to eight inches today. Dad is expected to get ten inches back home near Rochester.

Our new matching chair is supposed to be delivered today but we will see what happens with the weather being as it is. It would be awesome to have that in time for the game tonight but that doesn’t seem possible at all as it needs to be brought up and assembled before we can use it and if we don’t get it finished and cleaned up it would just be a big mess in the way until it was and we don’t have very much time to play as it is.

Another day has passed and the software pirates have not contacted me with the address to their secret lair so that I can ship the computer chassis back to them. So it is looking more and more as if I got a free computer (sans software) out of the deal. Too bad the computer is so beat up. But at least it was free. And it appears to work too. Can’t really complain too much I guess.

My afternoon became horribly busy – partially because of people saving stuff until the end of the day and partially because I was left covering for people attempting to drive home in the bad weather and partially because Kinko-FedEx needed me to stand in the store for forty minutes while they boxes up some stuff for me to send out. I had called ahead to make sure that FedEx could handle doing the boxing for me and they said that that was fine. Then I got over there and thought that I could just drop the stuff off, pay and be on my way in five minutes. Nope. Forty minutes of just standing around waiting for them. Argh.

Dominica had a crappy drive home in the sleet and snow. I wrapped up everything that I could at work (more to come later on though) and quickly showered and continued cleaning as fast as I could. We had originally scheduled tonight at six for a D&D group thinking that that would be plenty of time but now it is a major panic to be ready. It was all that I could do to get the house ready and to get myself ready and to keep up with the after-hours work that was pouring in.

Dominica got home just after six and took Oreo out. I had just fed him his dinner and he wanted to go for a walk although not a long one as he does not enjoy this weather at all.

Ramona arrived around six thirty and Kevin and then Chris arrived a little after seven. So we actually had a bit more time than we had planned but ended up needing it as I had not had time to get a character ready for Kevin since we didn’t know until tonight that he was going to be playing.

We ordered in pizza from Nino’s and we all ate just before starting to play. We played more or less from eight until a little after midnight. About halfway through the game Dominica baked us an apple pie to keep everyone happy. We remarked that it doesn’t get much more American than D&D and Apple Pie.

We were all very tired by the end of the game and were ready to get to bed. Everyone has to be at work tomorrow except for Kevin who is just using up his saved up vacation time.

Andy drove to Canada today. Of all days – worst weather of the entire year so far. Took him nine hours to get up to North Bay, Ontario! At least he has GPS now and an Audible account. He has a ton of driving to do in the next week. He is going to Pittsburgh next week and this will be the most driving that he has done in a single week in years, I am sure.

Tomorrow night Dominica and I are driving to Arnold, Maryland for the Nicklin Christmas Party. We won’t be leaving until seven or eight at the earliest so it will be quite late by the time that we finally arrive. At least the weather is supposed to be good tomorrow.

I got caught up on my Project Management class at RIT. Once again, I am taking a “master’s” class that appears to be nothing more than a simple recap of the same class that I took while doing undergrad at SUNY Empire only the undergrad was quite a bit more thorough and expected more of us. I really don’t feel as if I have gained much through this experience so far. Although that is what I had predicted.

The latest Apple Nerd vs. PC Business Guy (The Girl) commercial. What in the world made Apple think that having the kid who played the “supreme Trekkie nerd” from Galaxy Quest as their mascot was a good idea and then have a series of commercials where they try to show “socially inept” as cool? This is a great series of spoof’s on Mac’s horrible advertising campaign of late: Money, Work, Music. You can check out the original material here from Laurie McGuinnes.

Part of Apple’s mistake was hiring Justin Long who is quoted as saying “I’m very, very computer illiterate… I get the worst of both worlds. I look like a geeky hacker, but I don’t know anything about computers.” – Interview with Fred Topel, June 28, 2007. Apple’s message: Mac’s make you look like a geek but not have a clue. Um, that’s not how “geek chic” works. It is important to note that when selecting their spokesperson Apple went for “nerd” (as in ComicCon) rather than “geek” as in LinuxTag. Apple is more aligned with the “dresses up like comic book characters crowd” rather than the “writes amazing business software in their spare time crowd”. Apparently Apple is hip to the jargon of the industry yet. Or assumes that their customers aren’t.

December 12, 2007: Getting Caught Up

I stayed home a little this morning just to make sure that Dominica was doing okay and could get off to work. She was feeling pretty good last night and didn’t take as much hydrocodone as she did last week and she was able to head off to work pretty early this morning.

Oreo, for some reason, was very sleepy this morning and did everything that he could to sleep in as late as he could (until breakfast was served, that is.) Then he went and slept on the loveseat until Dominica put his “school outfit” on and even then she had to pick him up to do it because he was being a limp noodle. Then, while she was walking him to the door, she walked too slowly and he laid down on his pillow while being lead along on his leash!

It is extremely warm today. So warm that I had to take off my jacket while walking down Wall Street today to keep from getting too warm. Not the kind of weather that one expects in mid-December in New York.

Oreo is all set for his long weekend at the doggie hotel. He will be staying at daycare from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon while Dominica and I are in Arnold, Maryland.

I was doing some searching for something else today and stumbled upon this interesting looking game from Battle Phase Games: The Warrior’s Tale. This is done in the style of the original Bard’s Tale video game series from the early 1980s but is completely new, free and available for the Windows XP platform. I didn’t get a chance to play it at all yet but the graphics look impressive for the style and I am quite interested to see how the game is. I love new games done in a classic style.

Today was actually a slow day at the office which was totally unexpected at this time of year.  I was able to keep up with stuff all day long.  That was a nice change.

December 11, 2007: Dominica Has More Teeth Out

My first good news of the morning was seeing that my money was being refunded via PayPal’s protection mechanism. That is a relief. I also, on the same day, hit a score of 100 on eBay marking both 100 good feedbacks and a 100% score which I expect to be ended if the pirate is allowed to leave feedback for me but we will see. No one gets to keep a score that good for long anyway. Someone is always looking to get you and you just have to accept it and move on.

Here is a tip for people who get a computer with loads of pirated software on it: pirates don’t like to give out return addresses so that you can send stuff back to them.

Work was very busy today and I didn’t get a chance to do anything extra, including lunch, except to make a very quick walk to the post office while walking Oreo to mail our registration renewal form for the Mazda PR5 (which is still for sale if anyone cares.)  It was a very busy day.

Oreo is getting used to the loveseat and spent a bit of the day sleeping on it.  He misses his old futon though.  It was really “his”.  None of us used it because it wasn’t that comfortable to sit on but it was perfect for the dog.  We are very glad to have more seating now in the living room and will be even happier when the matching chair arrives later this week.  We have another D&D game scheduled for Thursday evening and people will actually have places to sit now.

Min got home at five and we were off to the dentist fifteen minutes later.  Oreo waited in the car and I walked a little over a mile in the cold rain to find dinner while Dominica had her teeth pulled.  Two more wisdom teeth today so that they are all out.  I found a sub shop in Kearney that had really amazing food.  I was glad that I decided to walk all of that way.  I found that there were a lot of restaurants on that stretch that looked good.  Too bad all of the food is so far away.  Nothing like that around downtown at all.

The surgery took just under an hour and we were out of there at a quarter till seven and on our way home.  We got home and I walked Oreo and then did a little bit more work to wrap things up at the office for people who needed changes made after I had left to drive Min to the dentist and then we called it a night.  Min played a little Paper Mario and then we watched Are You Being Served? before going to bed.

Hey, just because you don’t understand it doesn’t make it random. Oh, and this is all that you ever needed to know about hamsters.

December 10, 2007: Today We Discover Natalie Dee

They don’t call them slippers for nothing. And, of course, have a flaming apple juice. Natalie Dee knows why the world is going to be okay. How bakeware feels in the midwest. And, of course, one specifically about Oreo. Mice in teacups. Why a Honda SUV must be a good idea. Fear of cats. And this important question about aesthetics in modern American eateries. Natalie Dee on “How Scott Feels About Television and Especially Donnie Darko“. I mean seriously. The big bunny was bad enough in Harvey. Donnie Darko is seriously boring. And I am the guy who liked the long versions of Das Boot and Dances with Wolves. And Natalie Dee definitely has a grasp on New Jersey shopping fashion (i.e. the fashion of women shopping in New Jersey not shopping FOR fashion in New Jersey – if there is such a thing.)

And today’s SGL award goes to: Andrew T. West for the proper use of the word “verily” in a sentence not involving sheep, angels, shepherds or choirs.

Today was busy at work but nothing like Friday. That was awful. Today was just normal busy. But busy enough to keep me tied to my workstation all day long.

Our big excitement today is the expected delivery of our new futon. For some reason it managed to pass the chair and is arriving first even though it was ordered several days later.

I had to make a run out to the post office today. I had a bunch of stuff to mail. The mail… is it really true that we still need the mail? Can’t we do without it at this point? When do we need it? For birthday cards? That isn’t a good enough reason. To mail checks to people? If they can’t use PayPal or some other simple, standard, cheap, immediate form of payment then they really don’t care enough about the money to justify bothering to send it to them. For magazines? Yes, deforestation is a great reason for keeping the post around. So that tons of big companies that I don’t like can pay some guy to deliver their garbage (you all know what I mean) and put it into our mailboxes instead of into a landfill so that we have to deal with it instead of them?

I had to deal with my first ever major issue with an eBay seller today. I had one once that sold me a $6 video game and never sent it to me and just took off with the money. But it was $6. This time it was $210 and a software pirate. Not as bad as the time that Andy got hit for over $1,000 from an online pirate but still pretty bad. Luckily eBay and PayPal have some major mechanism for dealing with this stuff so I am confident that the issue will be resolved quickly.

Dominica got home with Oreo and we immediately ran out to Subway to grab dinner. It was a quick bite and then we walked down to GameStop to do some Christmas shopping. We are loving have a nice GameStop so close. It is hard to believe that such a nice shop can exist on that corner. If anything is a sign of the times changing in Newark it is that store surviving there. Dominica found two games for the girls for Christmas that she has not been able to find anywhere else. We also picked up, used, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for ourselves as well as Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door so that Dominica can go straight on to that after finishing the original Paper Mario for the N64.

On the way home we stopped at Starbucks and got ourselves hot chocolate and gingerbread scones. For some reason, even though we live just one block from a Starbucks, we have only ever been there a few times in the more than a year that we have lived here. This was, in fact, Dominica’s first time into that Starbucks and no more than my third! But perhaps we will be there more often now. Walking to GameStop to do some shopping and stopping off for coffee or other treats is so very handy.

After dinner we came back to the apartment and I did some work online and aided Dominica as she worked on assembling our new loveseat that arrived today from Target and Amazon (some arrangement that I am not clear about.) It wasn’t too bad to put together and in no time it was assembled and set up in our living room. It is a deep chocolate brown simple affair. We have it set between the east facing windows as the center piece of what is now, more or less, a real living room.

We did some shopping on Amazon tonight for Chessex game dice.  We don’t have any here at all and it has become a problem.

And today I leave you with this.

December 9, 2007: Lazy Sunday

Today is a lazy day for the Miller household.  For some reason we didn’t get to bed until late last night.  Video games, books, D&D, etc.  It happens.  Dominica and Oreo were both awake long before me today for a change.  I slept until noon!

We took Oreo out right away for his morning walk and went to Market City right in our building for “breakfast”.  They said that the Sunday crowd is really good there being the only business in the entire downtown area that bothers to be open for all of the people living where we do.  It is  the only place that we can walk to quickly that we are aware of that has food for us on Sundays (or late evenings.)

Dominica spent most of the day playing Paper Mario on the Wii Virtual Console.  I did a bit of just “fun” reading today.  I read the rest of “Homeland” by R. A. Salvatore.  It was really good and I am looking forward to getting to read “Exile” – the next book in the series.  One of the advantages to waiting almost two decades before starting to read a popular book series is that almost all, if not all, of the sequels have been written and prequels and corrections and all that and I get to just start at the beginning and read them as fast as I want without having to wait for another book in the series to release.

Speaking of books that we have been waiting for for a long time, Sue Grafton’s “T is for Trespass” is finally out this month, less than a week ago in fact.  Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone mystery series is our favourite series of mystery books.  We really enjoy them and have the entire collection on Audio CD.  We have been listening to them for years now and eagerly await each new installment.

Through a somewhat bizarre turn of events Dominica and I now own a copy of Super Mario Galaxy that we will get to pick up at Christmas making it, more or less, a Christmas present to ourselves.  So we now own the 3D Mario collection of Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy.

Oreo is having a great weekend.  Three straight days of never being away from us at all.  He has been sleeping and smiling all weekend long.  He is one happy dog.

Today was very quiet overall.  Eventually we decided to get another meal from Market City and settled in to watch the final two episodes of The Vicar of Dibley from 2006.  We just got the last two episodes on DVD the other day.  The ending of the series was good but definitely not its highlight.  It is sad that the show is finally completely over.  For years it kept lingering on with the hope of another show being squeezed in at some point.  While watching the show this time I realized that the opening shot (an aerial going down the M40 in Oxfordshire) was shot very near where Dominica and I traveled through.  I did some research and we were indeed no more than eight miles from that particular spot and most likely far less.  From my best map estimates it looks as though we were approximately three miles from it running roughly parallel while we were on the train following the route of the A4010.  The shot is taken near Stokenchurch.