cellio | Entries tagged with dnd

This week's D&D game was nifty. The last several sessions have had some very nice scenery and world-building, thanks to

ralphmelton. The land in which the characters live bears, shall we say, tight relationship to a certain dragon; we've recently been exploring in "Laryn" (tied to sound) and "Optalis" (left as an exercise). Each area has had thematic magics and thematic inhabitants. Next we are heading to the gorge of fire. :-)

I've also been enjoying the character-level developments. I find particularly striking the divergence between two characters. Liandra (lorimelton's character) has a clear place in the world (that's been known all along) and a place to settle down when "all this is over". Larissa (my character) doesn't; it's pretty much established that she can't go home again, but she also has nowhere to go to -- except that there's been a surprise development (surprise to both the character and the player) that could play out interestingly. I've been trying to play Larissa as being a little sad about the future but trying to ignore it because she doesn't want to be jealous of her friend Liandra; I don't know how successful I've been.

The world in which we're playing is rich, and even if that story line doesn't play out, I can think of oodles of things to keep my character busy for her post-campaign life, and even when the game is over I may try to write some of that. (I've been writing some of her story during the campaign, so this would be a continuation.) I've been having a lot of fun with the creative aspects of this that go beyond game sessions.

1. What do you like best about the city where you live now? What do you like least? ( Read more... )

2. What is your impression of Orthodox Judaism "from the outside", as it were? ( Read more... )

3. How did you choose the synagogue you go to?( Read more... )

4. How did you get into RPG and what's your favorite game? ( Read more... )

5. If you could have any job in the world, what would it be? ( Read more... )

1. One of your major "gripes" about your fellow Jews in the Reform movement is that how unsupportive (and at times hostile) they are of those within the movement who choose to be more religiously observant. Why do you think that is? ( Read more... )

2. Both the reform and the reconstructionist movements hold that religious observance of halacha is nonbinding and voluntary -- what I find troubling is that lay reform and reconstructionist Jews often don't have enough of background to make meaningful choices. Do you see this as a problem? ( Read more... )

3. How did you get involved in gaming? What do you enjoy most about it? (I've tried, Lord knows, I've tried and my character is currently riding around in someone's sack.) ( Read more... )

4. Describe your favorite childhood comfort food. ( Read more... )

5. If you were given a year long all expense scholarship for Jewish study, where would you go? ( Read more... )

This came as a complete surprise to me, but my sister would like to attend a Star Trek convention with at least one of her teenage kids. (None of them have ever been to any con.) If anyone has suggestions for ones not too far from Pittsburgh that might appeal to newcomers and not be too expensive, I'll pass the suggestions along. Shore Leave in Baltimore could work, except if I recall correctly the hotel is something well over $100/night, which might be a problem.

It seems a little, I don't know, unnerving that the "eye for an eye" part of the Torah (in Mishpatim) rolls trippingly off the tongue, both musically and textually. It's so smooth and graceful... but hey, at least it's easy to learn. :-)

They gave me an aliya this morning at services. Before reciting the blessings, it is customary for a man to touch the Torah scroll with a corner of his tallit. For a woman, they have you use the sash that's used to tie the scroll shut. But this morning they had temporarily lost track of that sash when it was my turn, and while they were looking for it one of the guys told me to "just wear a tallit already, ok?". This is the first evidence I've seen in ~5 years of going there that it would be considered socially acceptable in that congregation for a woman to wear a tallit. Heh -- learn something new every day.

Tonight's D&D game was fun. We had several combats in rapid succession, and we know there will be more before the characters have time to rest, which lends excitement to the game in excess of the sum of the excitement levels of the individual fights. And we did some fun things in the fights; I was particularly happy when something (probably called a cloaker or the like) enveloped someone and my sorceror -- polymorphed as a troll and flying -- attempted to out-grapple it and pull it off. This rightly failed, as my character is not a warrior, but it was entirely appropriate for her to try. (Similarly, it was entirely appropriate for her to charge into combat with the undead whatever-they-weres and smack them with her undead-hating sword.) I like the fact that the level of paladin gives me flexibility in interesting ways without in any way competing with the party's half-dragon fighter.

1. Why did you pick the hammer dulcimer? ( Read more... )

2. What foods, if any, do you particularly miss from your pre-kosher days? ( Read more... )

3. What's the scariest experience you're willing to talk about in this forum? ( Read more... )

4. What technological advance do you most look forward to in the next ten to twenty years? ( Read more... )

5. I'll return the question, but more broadly: what would you like to get in your next RPG experience? This might include whether you'd be a player or GM, ruleset, genre, tone, character type, whatever. ( Read more... )

This has been a pleasant weekend, for the most part. We've been learning some fun new music at Shabbat evening services lately. Next week's celebration of Shabbat Shira is going to be a big deal musically; this is the parsha where we read about the song at the sea, and we're going to have a more music-focused service than usual. It's also starting an hour earlier so that families with young children can come without hassle. Should be fun.

Saturday morning went well. My rabbi had just come back from a retreat where, among things, they apparently focused on doing more with less. So we skipped some songs and some of the English repetitions and stuff and tried to really focus on the parts we did do. I liked it. I don't like rushing, especially if the rushing is in pursuit of something arguably pointless. (If you've just said the prayer in Hebrew, repeating it in English is pointless to me. If the point is to be friendly to those who can't read Hebrew even with transliteration, then the answer IMO is to sometimes skip the Hebrew. But don't do things twice.)

lefkowitzga joined us for Shabbat lunch, which was very nice. And she found fresh, tasty strawberries in Giant Eagle! I didn't know that was possible this time of year. We had no leftovers. :-)

Gail and I spent some time looking through the collection of Salamone Rossi's liturgical music to choose candidates for the choir. We both like his kedusha (for four voices), so we're going to suggest that. It took me a little while to figure out where the text came from, as I didn't recognize parts of it; it's from Shabbat Musaf, which Reform doesn't do. (Artscroll to the rescue.) Ah, ok. I knew there were differences, but I didn't know they were as significant as they are.

The edition of the Rossi music I have is bad in a couple ways. Some of the transliterations are just plain wrong; the text is also difficult to read in places. This is also someone's attempt to transliterate for French speakers, so it's not the usual mappings. For the last two pieces I retypeset the whole thing, but both times, despite serious proofreading, I managed to make some mistakes. I'm wondering if I should just hand it out as-is this time, hand everyone a pencil, and start reading off the text the way it's supposed to be. Or maybe someone else in the choir is better at transcription than I apparently am. We'll see, I guess. The first step is to get approval for the piece.

Saturday night was our long-awaited D&D game (it's been several weeks), where we rescued the two party members who had been captured by the vampires. It went very well, I thought, and Ralph was able to give us an adventure hook that got us some money and a specific task to pursue. The fight with the vampires, and subsequent rescue, cost a lot of money, so this is a welcome development. (Side note: the character who is largely responsible for this mess in the first place, the wizard, was both ungrateful for the rescue (we didn't get his spellbooks) and presumptuous about the spending of the money. (He got a lot of it for restarting his spellbooks.) He's a pretty ornery character, and in-game we probably would have dumped him long ago. But the player-level dynamics make that hard. I have no idea how much of this the player realizes.)

Sunday dinner was pleasant, except that Dani's been fighting a persistent cough for a couple days and it got worse tonight so we had to bail early. We stopped at a store on the way home to explore alternatives in cough syrup. I hope that whatever he picked out is more effective than what he was using.

Two mechanical annoyances struck this weekend. The first involves the washing machine; I went downstairs to move the laundry to the dryer only to find sudsy water on the floor and (I would later discover) still in the machine. The tub into which the machine drains was almost but not entirely full (and not draining), but I couldn't tell if the water on the floor was overflow or a separate problem. (What would cause the machine to stop, after all? It doesn't know that the tub is full...) So I applied a plunger to the tub and eventually picked out a lot of gunk from the drain; I could tell there was more that I couldn't reach. (What the heck is that and what's it doing in our drain? Eww...) This looked like a job for Liquid Plumber. :-) I rinsed off the clothes from the washer by hand so I could move them to the dryer and started the next load with some trepidation. Nothing went wrong there, so I still don't know what stopped the washer. I do not like this kind of mystery.

The other problem is that either my monitor (CRT) or my graphics card is failing, but I haven't shlepped heavy monitors around yet to test which. (Well, I suppose it could also be a cable. Hmm.) Every now and then my screen flickers and takes on rather more yellow than is normal. My computer has jaundice. Whee. Maybe tomorrow I will investigate further.

1. You get to send a written question back in time to one of the great sages, and receive a written answer. What do you ask, and to whom? ( Read more... )

2. As you get to know people, what do you feel surprises them the most about you? ( Read more... )

3. When you RPG, do you prefer a character mostly like yourself or mostly unlike yourself? Are there any recurring traits in characters you've enjoyed, or ways they seem to converge on something? ( Read more... )

4. What skill do you wish you'd studied in childhood so that you could just do it now? ( Read more... )

5. You can set up exactly one teleport ring, from your home to another place. It can only be used by you, and you can only move yourself and a small bit of luggage or family pet through it. Where is the other side? Why? How often will you use it? ( Read more... )

You know the drill: if you want a set of questions, ask. You'll update your journal, including the offer to propegate.

Saturday's D&D game was a lot of fun. It was a sub-group (two characters are currently elsewhere), and we got to do a lot of role-playing and story, and some nice little character bits came out. It was quite nifty. I think being (largely) unconstrained by time helped, too -- most sessions are on weeknights and people have to worry about getting to bed at a reasonable hour. Here, we could just play until a natural stopping point. (We're at the point where we need the other two players now.)

I talked with my parents yesterday. I enthused about some of the recent loot, particularly the scanner. They said that my nephew, who had seemed utterly indifferent to the DVD we bought him, went home, watched it, and was happy. That's good to hear. The kid still needs to learn some basic manners, though, like "thank you" and at least feigning interest in gifts.

I was surprised to learn that my parents knew basically nothing about the show 1776, either stage or movie. (I said this to a friend last night who said he didn't know it either, but he didn't grow up in a musicals-intensive house in one of the 13 colonies, so that's not surprising.) I remember seeing the movie as a kid; I mistakingly thought my parents had taken me. (We also saw it on a school outing.) The CLO is doing it this summer, which is what brought this up, and now I'm thinking that Dani and I, and maybe some friends, should go. I've never seen the stage version. I worry a bit about having my illusions shattered -- some other things I remember fondly didn't work out so well on more recent viewing, and maybe I should leave well enough alone. But it's probably safe.

Study with my rabbi today was very good, in a hard-to-summarize way. Maybe there'll be a separate entry later. (Aside: according to the talmud, God prays. This prompted me to say "what and to whom?" before my rabbi could continue. We've looked at "what", and then had to stop. In a sense, that's the less-interesting question.)

Most people were back at work today. Naturally, the single person who understands the part of the software that is currently getting in my way is out for a few more days. Oops. Tomorrow I begin plaintively asking not-so-random developers "do you know anything about [module]?". :-) (It's got to be pilot error; no one gets this right on the first try near as I can tell. If I figure out what that error is, then not only can I move past it but I can also improve the documentation.)

Dani's car died (again) Saturday morning. This is not the ideal weekend for finding open service places, so he ended up having it towed to a place that came recommended, and is within walking distance. They were closed, but he left a note and his key. With luck, they will call on Monday. (All of this happened before I got home from Shabbat services.)

This meant that for one outing this weekend he drove my car. Ouch, my poor clutch. I think he took off a chunk of its remaining lifetime. Today I did the driving, even the night-time driving that I'd rather not have done, because it beat the alternative.

For those who are keeping track, he's not sure if the current problem is related to the last mysterious car failure. That time, he took it to the Saturn dealership and they said they couldn't find anything wrong with it. They had no explanation for why it wouldn't start for him; worked for them, they said. My opinion of Saturn is dropping. They weren't likely contenders for my next car anyway; they don't make a hatchback as far as I know. But even if they did, I'm losing confidence in the local dealer.

( Saturday: games )

( Sunday: family visit )

Oh, and I'm behind on LJ. I'll try to catch up soon.

More snow! Whee! It's not unpleasant, though I do wonder what the state of things will be tomorrow morning. It's Sunday, so nothing nearby seems to have been plowed. (Haven't gone far.)

This afternoon we watched the first few episodes of an anime series called "Infinite Ryvius". Dani picked it up recently after seeing a couple episodes at a con. It looks like it will be good. I'm not all that familiar with anime. (This edition has an English dialogue track, which I consider to be a requirement. I think Dani's content with subtitles, which is good for him because I think most anime comes that way.)

Yesterday we had some folks over for gaming. We played History of the World in the afternoon; I think this was my first game with a full six players. If my die-rolling on the final turn hadn't absolutely sucked, I might have been able to win. (I spent most of the game in the vicinity of third place.) Britain in its 19th/early-20th-century colonial phase, with "naval supremacy" to boot, is not supposed to get whumped everywhere it tries to invade. Not that I'm bitter. :-)

After dinner one person had to leave and we had one new arrival, but I was feeling gamed out and didn't want to play more. That left five people, the optimal number for most Rio Grande games, so they broke out Puerto Rico and had fun.

Thursday night was the D&D game. ( Read more... )

Exciting game tonight. One of the players basically forced everyone into a fight that we were not ready for, and some of us objected vocally. We got thoroughly whumped. No one died, but the party is now split, an enemy who probably didn't know about us before is now motivated to hunt us down, and we didn't even do enough damage to make said enemy care. Oh joy.

At least I'm in the group with the druid (our healer), and I take some small satisfaction in knowing that the instigating character is probably in for some more whumping...

The detailed description will have to wait until after Shabbat, but since I know that some of our (my and the GM's) shared friends have been watching this develop in his journal, I thought I'd go ahead and post one player's brief perspective.

I enjoy playing in role-playing games like D&D. This is despite the fact that I am not a very good role-player, though I would like to get better. (I started out as a munchkin, back in the high-school days, and it took some years to learn that there was more to it than that.)

Ralph's game is the first I've played in for more than ten years. It's also the first game that clearly has a Story; the others have been collections of adventures, but if there was an overall theme it eluded me. (There was one other game where it looked like there could have been an overall story, but the campaign shut down relatively early so I never found out.)

Playing in a game with an overall story must be kind of like writing in a shared-world anthology. Everyone participates and affects the course of action, and everyone is responsible for sticking to the canon. It's different from writing in someone else's universe, though, like writing Star Trek novels or fan fiction, because the creator is right there with you in the shared world.

For reasons I no longer remember, I decided that my character in this game would keep a journal. (Ralph had just set up an LJ community for game stuff. I think I wrote the first entry on a whim and later decided to keep doing it, based in part on positive feedback from Ralph and a couple other players.)

Initially, that journal let me work out character background -- stuff that didn't really affect the story per se, but was part of the character. Over time, of course, I've been (trying to) record my character's take on the world around her, and sometimes as part of that I invent details that never happened in the game. Ralph has been cool with that, and he's been playing along by giving me extra non-game character moments.

This aspect of it has enhanced my enjoyment of the game more than I thought it would. Part of that is undoubtedly that I'm a much better writer than I am a speaker -- I can be slow to realize things, so the character journal gives me a chance to say things I didn't think of during the game session. Another part of it is that writing fiction is pretty unusual for me, so it's (if you'll pardon the expression) novel. And part of it is probably that Ralph trusts me with that small part of the world (and I know he's reacted to things I've written with tweaks to the game at times). All in all it's been pretty neat, and I think I'll be a little sad when the story (and thus the campaign) ends.

Now if I can just keep the character from getting killed by a vampire or something... :-)

Hey, LJ finally fixed the bug with ordering of memories. Memories are useful to me again!

Lately, a larger proportion of my spam is about enhancing body parts (primarily one I do not possess). The hot stock tips seem to be on the decline, though the various flavors of the Nigeria spam continue. I guess spammers weren't getting a lot of hits for investments in a shaky economy. I remain glad that I do not use a browser (or equivalent, like Outlook) to read my non-work email; spam is bad enough without flashing "porn porn porn!" in 72-point red letters while playing supposedly-appropriate background music. :-)

On Sunday Dani was arguing that we will have a mild winter because "tomorrow's weather will be basically like today's", iterate until done, and it was about 70 degrees on Sunday. I took the opportunity to mock him for this on Monday, when the temperature dropped nearly 30 degrees in three hours (and the day ultimately ended with snow). He's just got to learn the limits of simplistic logic. :-)

On the Mark is going to sound great at Darkover this weekend. Sunday's practice went very well. We have two surprises for our fans at the con, one positive. (The other is that we'll be taking a year off -- but we'll be back, so I don't want to call that "negative". It's just reality; people get busy and groups need downtime.)

Monday's choir practice was more focused than other recent ones. The director was keeping things on track, and a habitual "problem child" wasn't there (which I'm sure helped the director). I'm skipping the next several practices because I won't be at the next two performances (one in a week and a half and one in mid-January).

We went into last night's D&D game with a disagreement on the table about what to do next. I think one player is still convinced that we can do what three of us think is currently very foolish. The question was deferred last night, though, because one player couldn't make it, and we were not about to do something high-risk without everyone there to steer his own fate. So we got the outcome that I wanted, but not through the means I wanted. Once that was settled the game was a lot of fun. (My fun in the game is augmented by extra-game character-development activities, mostly achieved via email, private geeking with the GM, and the game journal.)

Conversation snippet:
Me: Does tartar-control mouthwash actually do anything useful, or is it just a marketing scam?
My dentist: It makes the tartar softer, which makes [hygenist]'s job easier.
Me: Hey, that's worth something. If [hygenist] is going to poke sharp objects at me, I'd like her to not be frustrated.

The salad bar has returned to the Giant Eagle across the street from where I work. And there was much rejoicing. :-) (Well, some rejoicing. In order to rate full-scale rejoicing they have to restore the yellow hot peppers.)

I almost had a chance to meet sanpaku, before he suffered car failure. Eventually I'd like to meet more of the people whose journals I read.

Welcome to LJ to zachkessin, an SCA friend who moved to Israel this summer. There is now a new SCA group in Jerusalem (he and kmelion are the people I know), and they're having their first feast tomorrow (Thursday). Good luck, guys! The parts of the menu I've seen look great. (No, no turkey, for anyone who was wondering.)

Holiday amnesty season (link from

browngirl).

siderea on consideration, and a followup posted since I started to compile this entry.

Lou Berryman likes the additions On the Mark has made to "A Chat With Your Mother". She says they might start doing them. Neat! (We haven't made lyrics changes -- more like "commentary".) I'm tickled when authors (1) hear our treatments of their material and (2) like what they hear.

Our D&D campaign has entered the free-form, characters-might-do-anything final arc. This is causing our GM to have to work extra hard to anticipate us. I hope we can all get onto the same wavelength so that we do the things he's prepared for us to do without anyone feeling railroaded. (Personally, I don't mind railroading in pursuit of a good story, but I don't think that's true of everyone in the game.)

Someone (in a friends-only entry) reported that the actor playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's new movie was struck by lightning during the shoot, along with a director. (A message from above?, the poster wonders.) I know I shouldn't laugh at someone else's misfortune, but the part that really got me was: "It was the second time Michelini had been hit by lightning during the shoot".

Second time... during the shoot. Ouch.

D&D on Wednesday was fun. We were fighting a party that we were trying not to kill (friendly folks under mind-control magic), which made it challenging. My sorceror did not throw even a single fireball. :-) I think my character's paladinhood-enhanced saving throws took Ralph by surprise, though, even though we had discussed it in the abstract. (Yes, there is a natural synergy in D&D 3.0 between sorcerors and paladins. Odd but true. And our ultra-benevolent GM is letting me do it. Mind, part of what he gets out of this is a significant plot hook when he needs it, because of the way he implemented it, but I figure it'll be a good story so that works for me.)

This week's West Wing gave me hope: a good, well-executed episode in the post-Sorkin world. I hope it's indicative of what's to come. (I just about fell out of my chair laughing during the speech-writing scene, because I knew what had to be coming.)

At last night's board meeting, the rabbi urged us all to make short appointments for individual chats. Last time he made that offer the result for me was regular one-on-one study with him. I wonder what'll happen this time. :-)

Trick-or-treating hours in my neighborhood are generally pretty early (5-7ish), so we're usually not even home from work. This year Halloween is on Shabbat, though, and post-DST-change, which means I'll certainly be home. Not excited about dealing with it, but home nonetheless. I guess I should pick up some candy. :-) (I don't mind the little kids at all; while I don't get into the whole "oh isn't that CUTE!" and/or "oh I'm so SCARED!" thing, I'm willing to play along on the candy ritual. It's the teenagers who don't even put on costumes but just show up on your doorstep holding out sacks that bug me. If you want to play, you should at least try.)

We're attending a bar mitzvah (and luncheon) tomorrow. I am unclear on the gift protocol. We haven't been invited to a gathering that isn't on Shabbat, so the choices appear to be: take the gift to the synagogue or take it to their house sometime later. I'll probably tell Dani to put it in the car (I'm walking for the earlier service; he'll meet me for the late service) but leave it in the car until we see what other people are doing. Just goes to show that there are some things you don't learn in classes. :-)

I have a gazillion LJ codes; if anyone reading this needs one, just say so.

Yesterday I posted some new in-character entries in

ralph_dnd. I'm finding that I really enjoy doing a journal from the point of view of my character. It's a neat exercise, and Ralph seems to be enjoying it too. It provides an outlet for introverted creativity, and I think it's helping Ralph flesh out his world a bit at times. (I'm pretty sure there have been cases where my character has speculated about something and Ralph has said, "yeah, that'd work". :-) )

I enjoy role-playing games, but I'm actually not a very good role-player. I'm too self-conscious, even among good friends. (I'm not a very good actor, either.) I'm also not very good at operating in real time, sometimes. The game journal gives me the advantage of reflecting on things the way the character would, rather than only dealing with things as they come up, in real time, at games. The characters have down time, so I'm using a little of my personal down time to fill in those bits.

All in all, it's a fun supplement to the fun game sessions. I'm glad I decided to play a literate character. :-)

Last night's D&D game was nifty. Ralph was able to show, not tell, us some important things about the problem our party faces, and my character got an interesting development. (It is still to be determined how this development relates to the surprise my character got last session.) One other character got something interesting too, but it's my journal and I'm going to talk about me. :-)

( Read more... )

I think Ralph did a great job of storytelling with this session. It was unconventional, informative, and just plain nifty.

We had a fun D&D game this afternoon. I particularly enjoyed the way in which the GM revealed something interesting about my character that I didn't know.

We had journeyed to the land of the elves, and when the one who came to meet us greeted us, he addressed each character in turn with a descriptive (e.g. the wizard who does scrying was something like "Far-Seer", and the character who had been blessed by a unicorn was "Unicorn-Touched", and so on). I was last, and he addressed my character as "Dragon-Blooded".

I should mention that this character is, so far as I know, 100% human. And that there is a strong dragon motif in this game world. One character who died reincarnated as a half-dragon half-human (which puzzles all the high-level characters in the game world who know about it), and a dragon was integral to the founding of the empire and may still be strongly linked to it.

So I don't know what my character has to do with any of this, but it came as quite a surprise. My jaw dropped, and the GM seemed pleased by this. Eventually maybe I'll find out what it all means. :-)

This will be fun to write up in

ralph_dnd.

Last night's D&D game was very good. We had good role-playing, we learned something more about the world that's important, and the encounters were well-balanced. The cliff-hanger we ended on, though, prompted the "ack! how can we deal with that?!" reaction, which probably means the GM has done a good job. We'll find out next time. :-)

Tomorrow is an SCA event, the Academy (a day of classes). There are some interesting classes on the schedule. We have crashers coming tonight, people we haven't seen in a while. Should be fun.

CompUSA hasn't called about my computer yet, so today I called them. They're working on it. Can they say anything more specific? No, but they'll have the tech call this afternoon. That was at 10am; I think "afternoon" has safely come and gone by now, and still no call. I hope it's ready for pickup on Sunday.

It must be rough to be a thirsty cat (or dog, probably). In watching Eric drink water earlier, I realized that cats don't have "slurp", only "lap". And the tongue just isn't that big, y'know? As someone who drinks around a gallon of water a day, often more, I cringe in sympathy.

Version-control systems should not behave differently depending on the location of a file. That is, "cvs [operation] somedir/file" and "cvs [operation] file" should produce the same results with respect to the file in question. You may infer from the fact that I'm writing this that this is not the case. Hrmpf.

In happier news, last night was the Transarc doc group reunion dinner. I had fun; Dani had less fun because he knew fewer people. (We were also seated near people I didn't know all that well, though enough conversations got shouted down the length of the table that this wasn't that much of a challenge.) Jim and Laurie were both there. We haven't seen them in ages! (Well, I saw Jim at a previous reunion dinner, but it's been a long time since I saw Laurie or Dani saw either.) Gotta fix that. Jean, too.

Coincidentally, the NetBill gang is talking about holding a reunion dinner next month. It's been about a year and a half. That'll be fun too. I volunteered to host that one; there are fewer NetBillians than Transarcians.

Tuesday was D&D. It was largely a role-playing session this time; I infer that there will be monster-bashing next time. :-) (I also need to figure out the best use of my character's share of recent loot.)

I've been having an annoying experience with a third-party seller through Amazon Marketplace. Almost a month ago I ordered the second season of B5 on DVD; it's not here yet, though it was required to ship three weeks ago. The seller has given me two different bogus tracking numbers for the package, and doesn't really answer email. (Those two tracking numbers are a significant percentage of the total word count of his messages.) He has thus far failed to tell me when the package actually shipped; I'm betting on either "a few days ago" or "never".

If worst comes to worst I can file a claim with Amazon for the money (in another few days), but I'm kind of irked that this loser seller will have cost me a month and some extra money. (The going rate is higher now than it was then.) He's got a large pile of negative feedback (all since I placed my order); I haven't left any yet. I wonder what makes people like that tick. I mean, I assume Amazon is going to go after him for all the insurance claims they'll have to pay out. How stupid is this seller?

But in happier news, according to Amazon the third season will be out in August. Yay!

Is it just me, or does the design for the WTC replacement look like New York is giving someone the finger? That can't be completely unintentional, can it?

We saw Chicago Wednesday night with a group of friends. It was an interesting movie. (I have not seen the play.) It dragged for about the first third, I thought -- if it had been a TV show or a DVD rental I would have turned it off -- but then it picked up. The lawyer made the show, as far as I'm concerned. All in all, an ok movie with some very funny bits. I'm not sure why it's a candidate for "best picture", though I can't say what I would propose instead. I don't go to enough movies to have a good handle on the options.

But: "Roxie" was so not a babe -- was she supposed to be attractive and it just doesn't work for me, or was part of the point that she didn't have the required characteristics, particularly upper-body real estate, needed to be that kind of dancer?

Tonight the fifth-grade class is leading service at my synagogue. I've got to find some place else to be. Maybe New Light (Conservative), because they're friendly and a block away, or maybe Young People's (Orthodox) because they seem friendly, they explicitly welcome newcomers, and I've never been there. Oops, Young People's starts before candle-lighting time, and I'll probably need those extra few minutes to get dinner ready. Hmm. Maybe I'll visit there in the spring.

Last night's D&D game was very exciting. We spent most of the evening on scouting and strategy and it was getting late, but we didn't want to just leave it that way so we decided to play out the attack last night (or at least the first major phase of it). It was a late night, but a fun one with lots of cool effects. Ralph did a good job of playing the main bad guy intelligently. I did a so-so job of tracking my own state. (In particular, I lost track of the effects of one attack that was made against me. I should have been making concentration checks for each spell cast. The good news is that I fail such checks on a 1 or 2, but I forgot to make about three of them and that's bad.)

I think I will stop listening to spell-selection advice from Dani; I'm majorly regretting the last spell I let him talk me into, and he's made a number of other suggestions that I've rejected. I think he doesn't understand the difference between sorcerors and wizards. I'm carrying around a third-level spell that I have never cast, when I had planned to take one of two others that would be (1) more useful and (2) more cool. (Essentially, I let him talk me into postponing those.) But I don't get my next third-level spell until ninth or tenth level, and I'm seventh level now. Oops.

Today's "Friday five" looks like one I'll do, but likely not on Friday. Too busy. Sorry; you'll have to wait. :-)

I'm trying version two of the fake ham tonight. I tripled the amount of salt in the brine, increased the spices, and left the veal in the brine for 48 hours this time before roasting it last night. I also covered the outside with brown sugar (lightly) before roasting, to maybe evoke some of the right flavor. I failed to acquire beet juice for color. We'll have it for Shabbat dinner tonight, which I realized belatedly might be ironic.

The D&D game has been having some interesting story developments lately, both at the last session and via email since then. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's game, especially as we won't be constrained on time the way we are on weeknights.

The next few local SCA events have higher-than-usual site fees. I wonder what's going on; did I maybe miss a general increase in the cost of sites? (That's possible.) I think I probably won't go to war practice this year; $12 for a day-trip without food just doesn't strike me as worthwhile. One of my apprentices is in charge of an activity, so I feel like I should go and support him, but I don't think I'd enjoy the event.

Oh, and so I don't lose track of this: West Wing, Season 2 (1st half) on DVD, release date April 7, Region 2.

Embla is two for two with the attic renovations. Today I came home to find that the door to the attic was closed, with her on the other side of the door. And much of the floor freshly painted. I didn't explore for kitty footprints in the paint. (And this is after I told the contractor that the cats like to hide up there...)

Last night's D&D game was fun. It looked like it was going to be a "sideline" story, just a random adventure and excuse to play with some new toys, and it turned out to be part of the overall story. I thought that was nifty. It looked like Ralph meant for it to be a little more threatening than it turned out to be; calibrating adventures has got to be hard.

Someone described to me an easy sauce for salmon: take sour cream and dijon mustard in approximately equal quantities, mix, spread over salmon, bake. (I always bake salmon wrapped up in foil so it doesn't dry out.) We had this tonight and it was tasty.

According to fitday.com, I get more than the RDA of most vitamins (300% of Vitamin A this past month, 240% of Vitamin C, a few other high numbers, and most others in the 100-120% range). There are two exceptions: Vitamin D at 52% and Vitamin K (what the heck is that?) at 33%. They do not, however, provide the next step in useful feedback: what foods would change that.

(While I'm being statistical, over that same month I've averaged (daily) 80g of protein, 57g of fat, 210g carb, 19g fiber, with saturated, poly, and mono fats being pretty much evenly split. I don't know if this is actually good.)

I was a little disappointed by tonight's "West Wing". The topic of parental degeneration (Alzheimer's) is hard to do well in 43 minutes, but I've come to expect the nearly-impossible from this show and this time it didn't quite work. Oh well. (On a related note, we borrowed "Sports Night" tapes recently; I hope to sit down to watch several episodes in the next few days. Right after Shabbat, perhaps.)

I got some much-needed QA resources at work today, and this has done much to increase my confidence in a part of my work for this next release. Yay, QA!

the_never drew this picture of my D&D character based on this description. Thanks!

Gail and I decided not to go to the event in Buffalo, so I invited her for Shabbat lunch instead. (She would have joined me for services first if the person in the other half of her duplex hadn't been very loud for a very long time in the wee hours of the morning.) We had a pleasant meal and gab session. It's been too long since we just sat around and shot the breeze.

(I'll write more about Shabbat stuff later, separately.)

In the evening we went to Ralph and Lori's party, which was a lot of fun! It was a good crowd of people, and the food, as usual, was fantastic. (I loved the curried gouda.) At one point I picked up a cookie-like object and, after sampling, said to someone "I have no idea what I'm eating, but this is really good". (I know that I can trust Ralph and Lori with food, so it's safe to pick up random food and eat it.) Lori described the recipe to me later. It was the buttersctch-orange candy.

I had one surreal moment when someone walked up to me and said "Hi Monica - do you remember me?" (I hate it when people ask that. There's no diplomatic way to say "I have no clue who you are", so I don't try for diplomacy. :-) ) This person was a co-worker at CGI, the first company I worked for after college. I left there in 1988. I still don't know what she actually did there; she had such strong memories that I felt odd asking something that would demonstrate that I really didn't remember any of this. I know she was not an engineer (I think I remember all the engineers anyway) because she talked about "you engineers". She seemed like a friendly-enough person, and apparently she now lives across the street from Ralph and Lori so I'll probably see her in the future.

There was one guest who was quite clearly not safe to drive home, so Dani and I tried to give him a ride. (We could have each driven a car to his house, so his car wouldn't be stranded.) He was very firm in his refusal and we didn't want to make a scene, but I worried that ultimately the hosts were going to end up in a show-down with him. I've since heard that someone else prevailed and he accepted a ride, which is good.

Today after a leisurely brunch we mostly finished shopping for my relatives. (There's always something you can't do via mail.) We also bought a desk for me; we went back to the second-hand room at one of the stores and they had something perfectly reasonable that's already assembled, so I don't have to do the IKEA-esque thing. :-) (Well, I was going to cave in and pay someone to do it.) And it's not expensive. It's a little beat up, but it's perfectly functional and I don't need fancy. I just need a writing surface with drawers. It'll be delivered a week from Monday; with luck the contractor will be done in that room by then, and then I can start carrying stuff upstairs. Yay.

Ralph and Lori gave us a copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide as a Chanukah present, and while we were in Borders today we decided to complete the initial set and pick up a Monster Manual. This is strongly influenced by my character's plans for Polymorph Self; it's time to peruse some of the options. :-)

Tonight I baked cookies for the choir dinner tomorrow. I was trying something new (but safe-new, not completely-untested-new), and it came out pretty well. Of course I had to perform quality control. :-)

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