So the kids are out of school for the summer as of yesterday...and Jen and I stayed up waaaay too late last night. I was up until around 7am. Oops. Then I had a doctor's appointment at 1pm. Gah. Add to this that Rainman had a friend stay the night, and so they were all up ridiculously early. Still feeling a little tired, honestly. Going to have to go to bed early tonight.

Based on a review from Kobold Quarterly, I ordered Secrets of Pact Magic and Villains of Pact Magic from Radiance House, because I like the subject matter, and figured I could plunder it for both our 3.5 game and our Sorcerer game. I also received The Spider God's Bride and Other Tales of Sword and Sorcery from Xoth.net Publishing, which arrived a few days ago.

I have plenty of game-related reading in store for me in the near future.

Also, having a great discussion about Sorcerer over on the Forge (starting here). It's ridiculous how much I had blanked about play in the years since I'd last played in a game, but it is starting to come back, and (as usual for everyone, I swear) I'm still finding out new things about the rules as well.

That conversation made me realize something that made me kick myself. Remember back in the old days when the GM rolled all the dice so that you could concentrate on just playing your character? That's...Sorcerer!

The players just play their characters, that's their only job, and the GM deals with their dice -- not in terms of "rolling everything for you", but the same idea: he keeps track of what you need to roll when and lets you know. That's his job, not judging what dice you should get.

See what I mean? He doesn't give you dice, you don't earn them from him, he handles the dice so you can concentrate on playing, not whoring for bonus dice. That's a huge thing.

I know that I'd been viewing the system for a while as a "earn those dice with narrative chops (the GM decides if your chops earn you dice)", both because that's what the book makes it sound like (having been written pre-Big Theory and struggling to convey ideas that hadn't been formulated yet) and because of my highly Gamist leanings which make me look at the system as something to be utilized to win challenges.

...

...and my sink broke. Blondie went down into the basement to get a towel from the dryer, and shouted upstairs, "The pawice arere!" Which made no sense, so I went to see what was going on, and she says, "Wook! It's weaking!" Water is pouring through the ceiling from the kitchen floor above...Jen's doing the dishes, draining the sink...turns out the drain seal broke.

All fixed now, but bleh. Stinky dishwater everywhere.

Other than writing really long posts about social psychology and the dark depths of the human mind...

dwaleberry, you will like this: Norse Code. Or at least I assume you will like it, given that I haven't read it at all yet, and it might be completely bleh. Still, I hold out hope.

Why the fuck is it snowing in the middle of May? REALLY? *sigh* Minnesota.

Lost my voice yesterday (that's still Thursday for me...haven't gone to bed yet), right after I came home from my wonderful hospital appointment with needles, drugs, and flexible tubes with cameras in them (no, still no idea, they took biopsies). Got it back. Still have a horrid throat/sinus infection something fierce.

Installed Windows RC7 today. Interesting. I like the visuals. The Belkin USB adapter installed more easily on it than it does with XP. Honestly, though, I haven't played with the OS long enough to really say much about it at all.

Also, the folks at Sonju will rip you right off. Stay away from there. My father had a very bad experience earlier: they must have thought he'd never bought a vehicle before. Wasted over three hours of his life and kept on lying to him to jack up the previously agreed upon price, even claiming they couldn't offer the deals they printed in the paper. All of which tells me "don't trust a damn thing said by any business from the North Shore"--historically for us, nothing but bad luck as they seem to employ liars and cheats, and even produce the occasional outright criminals.

Meme yoinked from partly_bouncy.

01. Do you snack while you read? If so, favourite reading snack?

Nope. I can't stand getting stuff on the pages, plus my hands are busy...holding the pages, perverts!

02. Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?

Horrifies me. Flat out. Keep those things pristine!

03. How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?

I either use a bookmark or I just remember the page number or whereabouts I am. Dog-ear!? DOG-EAR?! HEATHENS! Great holy gods, that's AWFUL! You should be punished for your crimes.

04. Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?

Mostly fiction these days. I have shelves full of non-fiction I keep meaning to get to, but the voraciousness level of my reading has gone down considerably since I was a kid. I'm not worried about this: a few years ago an old friend, Nigel, told me about how he devoured books but then went through a ten-year period where he barely read at all.

05. Hardcopy or audiobooks?

Hardcopy. Despite there being an annoyance factor in it for me with being unable to linger over phrasings and reread passages, I would like to listen to well-produced audiobooks (check out Nathan Long's "Slayer of the Storm God" or Atlanta Radio Theater's "At the Mountains of Madness" if you want to know what I mean) -- radio drama, really -- but there isn't any sort of drive time or anything similar I could listen to them during.

06. Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?

Must...read...to...end of...chapter! Usually.

07. If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away? Write it down to look it up later? Just try to infer what it means from the rest of the sentence, and keep going?

Infer the meaning and charge forward. It likely isn't important anyways. If I need to know, if it stops me right there and my brain decides I need to know and won't let go, I'll go grab a dictionary. I wouldn't remember it long enough to look it up later.

08. What are you currently reading?

"Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos" by HP Lovecraft and divers hands.

09. What is the last book you bought?

I believe it was "The Horror in the Museum" by HP Lovecraft and others. However, I just purchased a new copy of the "Sorcerer" core rulebook, which hasn't arrived yet.

10. Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can read more than one at a time?

I'm biased against reading multiple books at a time -- its about the purity of the experience -- but I can read more than one at once and have done so recently.

11. Do you like re-reading books?

Honestly no. It's read and done. I've heard the story, so why would I read it again? Which is odd because I never get rid of any book I own, thinking I might want to reread it in the future or reference it or...I don't know. That said, I have, lately, taken to rereading HP Lovecraft's work. And will probably start rereading REH's Conan tales soon.

Drove an acquaintance of ours to the bus station in Duluth today and stopped off to do a little shopping. Picked up two sets of Munchkin (the original and Star Munchkin; sadly, no Cthulhu Munchkin to be found!), plus a book of epic poetry-and-artwork, and a collection of Brian Lumley's mythos stories. But the B&N had nothing by the sci-fi authors I'm currently into reading!

Overheard at B&N, in the Sci-Fi & Fantasy section -- Old lady with tremulous voice, talking to grandson looking for a novel: "What are you looking at? Science Fiction and fantasy...are these books evil?" Note: she was very concerned about this, and this idea was repeated a few more times while the grandson browsed, "Are you sure these books aren't evil? I don't want to buy anything evil."

This is me: O_o "..."

So I moved over one aisle to spy what books specifically they were looking at...

...

...Star Wars.

Then I bought my books and went to Taco Bell for Jen.

Holy crap! My son is finally reading, and voraciously!

He dug through the boxes and boxes of books I'd packed up to put into storage or sell at the used bookstore for credit (lacking the shelf space and desire to keep many of them), digging out all the Forgotten Realms, DragonLance, and so forth and stacking them up in his room.

The trigger for all this? I was finally moving some boxes from the dining room to the attic the other night and came across one of those old Choose-Your-Own-Adventures books TSR put out a few decades back. He asked about it, thought it sounded cool, asked if there were more, so I helped him dig out the rest of the series. He started reading all of them right then (and yes, I do mean ALL of them).

When he was done with trying to do his chores and read at the same time, he started rummaging through all the boxes and taking out longer novels, asking "What's this one? Is this the first one? Is this one good?" I told him to start off with the Icewind Dale trilogy and Spellfire, which were my favorites back in the day, along with Azure Bonds. He wouldn't read that one, he said it sounded boring, but he started reading the second in that series.

I'm like, "WHAT? You can't read the second book in the series first! It won't make any sense!" But he doesn't care. He's finally reading, so I don't care.

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Regarding the whole "they still have my money" situation: I called the other folks' realtor again since I still hadn't heard back about the last more-than-fair deal I'd offered them (an attempt to avoid the aggravation and costs of court, and to be the nice guy) and left a message.

He called back and claimed they told him in November they were going to call me themselves and try to work it out, and that was the last he had heard. I'm inclined to believe this, since these folks have a proven habit of not doing what they say they're going to and dragging their feet, which was what led to all the problems with the failed purchase. Well, obviously, they never called me; he's going to try and get in touch to see what's going on.

As a precaution, I've picked up the necessary legal forms I'll need to file assuming no agreement can be reached because this has dragged on long enough. And if we do go to court, I won't be asking for just the earnest money back, but all my costs related to the attempted purchase, such as the multiple bank appraisals and home inspections that became necessary when the house repeatedly failed to be in a ready condition for either, plus whatever legal fees accrue.

I'm considering including the pay I've lost, since it was their nonsense that increased my stress to the amount I had to leave work, but not certain on that yet. Regardless, I'm not thrilled with the idea; court is a frustrating and costly PITA, and I can spare neither sanity nor money.

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And an observation: I wish there were a way to database all the non-centralized comments, blog posts, etc. that one posted across the web so one could find both the comments and the associated articles, particularly due comments and posts that vanish into oblivion when a site closes down or should an overzealous or biased mod disapprove of a comment (like the 1984-style moderation at "freedom loving" Boing-Boing). Tags for comments would be a super-bonus for such a thing.

I'm thinking of some kind of database structure that pulled all your posted content in and stored it, from wherever you might have posted it. I want this because I've run into an annoyance: when I type things out and fail to save a copy (which is most of the time), such as replies to posts, blog comments, etc. and something happens where the comment doesn't post, or the site vanishes later, I'm out that material, but more usually, I've written something I want to be able to pull up again for review or in support of some later point or idea.

So what else is up besides my making art? That's pretty much it. I've abandoned NaNo for this year, as I just don't have the time to do it while I'm working on the illustrations. This is probably the worst year I've had for NaNo.

I've been watching movies and reading a lot more, though, and playing the heck out of New Super Mario (almost done, trying to earn a Complete on every world). I also ordered myself a DS Flash card, so I can download some of the sweet homebrews and read e-books, watch videos, and listen to mp3's (audiobooks, ahoy!) via my DS.

I finished the latest Shannara novel, which was decent, and I've started Old Man's War by Scalzi, which (so far) is fucking awesome. Go read it now.

Movie-wise, I've watched a number of really bad movies, some alright movies, and some really good movies, from Battle Planet -- great idea, terrible plot, and the ending was astoundingly terrible; the full thing felt like half a damn movie -- to Hancock -- so good! -- and so forth.

It's the Crazy Belated August Birthday Post GenCon Autumn Madness ORX sale! Yay! Ever wanted to try ORX but, you know, you weren't sure about spending the $10 on the PDF?

Well, now's your chance to grab the PDF for $3 off! Just head on over to Indie Press Revolution and get your copy of the PDF for $3 off during the month of September.

Or, you can buy the PDF+Print combo and grab the PDF free! Yep, free PDF with the book until the end of September (and you even get the book for 39-cents less! Crazy!).

And, hey, tell your friends, loved ones, co-workers, and random strangers on the street. We won't mind!

I'm dragging one of the last of my big boxes of gaming material out of basement storage to move next weekend (and I mean a lot of big boxes, like over a half-dozen banana crates of), and while I found one of my previously pristine boxes had been mashed by packing and moisture (Planes of Law now, ironically, has the most chaotic box shape I've ever seen), none of the books had been downright ruined. Until tonight.

Last box, bottom of the pile, and I find the back end of the box is covered in black mold (to such an extent I have doubts the box will hold together if I pick it up). I was hoping it was just the box, but one of the books on that end...well, the cover has been basically eaten by mold, the book even felt soggy/wet/loose to the touch when I pulled it out. I'm also afraid the book that was just behind it may be in sadly similar shape in terms of moisture damage, though lacking the mold growth.

Not even sure I can still find that book for sale at a decent price (The Art of DRAGON Magazine). I'm more upset because all my stuff was in pristine shape when I put it into storage down here, and I only just moved these in from the garage last summer. I guess next year's tax return is going to be used on a dehumidifier for the storage area.

Also: pretty concerned about the whole black mold thing, so also on Second-Christmas list: good air purifier.

Picked up 3:16 - Carnage Among the Stars and (finally back-in-stock) The Dictionary of Mu from IPR. Unfortunately, the gorgeous, beautiful cover for 3:16 was ruined by either the dog or the kids this weekend while we were out at the cabin. Someone did something which bent the cover nearly in half in one spot and creased it in a second: I could weep (I nearly did). I JUST BOUGHT the book. Sob!

Amazon occasionally sends me e-mails about books and such things they think I will like based on previous purchases and so forth. Today I recieved an e-mail about the "War of Souls" triology.

Now, I've done a pass on the whole "War of Souls" triology because...well, it's DragonLance. The first triology was good reading, back when I was in early high school, but most of the books put out by TSR that bore the DragonLance name sucked big. I know because I purchased and read them all until a number of years ago when it just wasn't worth the expenditure any more (in time or money).

Plus, Tracy Hickman is an arrogant fundamentalist who believes non-Christians are not just deluded, but broken people with serious mental problems, and said so to my face a few years ago. I wish I still had the e-mails or the "Boycott Tracy Hickman" webpage I had quoted them on, but all are long lost to the ethers of cyberspace at this point. Honestly, I don't hate the guy, but I'll be damned if I'm ever going to support another thing with his name on it or with his hand in the work given that treatment.

In his defense, he did half-apologize, that is, he later stated he didn't believe we should focus on our differences but on our similarities. Which isn't really an apology; it's shitting on someone then trying to pretend it isn't a big deal you just shit on them: "You're a a broken, disturbed man because you aren't a Christian, but can't we just get along anyways, you pathetic thing?"

Anyways, the reviews on the product this time around made me stop and consider actually reading the series...and now I realize I won't, even though I am intrigued by the positive non-fanboy reviews. The memory of that whole conversation and the condescending bigotry it involved just talked me out of the possibility. Ah well.