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Raven Daegmorgan
23 October 2009 @ 07:49 am

A while back, the girls decided that they could get chicks to hatch from carton-eggs if they just cuddled them and warmed them up. They even took some of the eggs up to their room.

We had thought we had rescued all the eggs (and hence the room/house/clothing/bedding/furniture) that day--even despite the fits that were thrown when we tried to explain to them that you can't hatch chicks from carton-eggs--and gotten all our edible ovum back into the fridge without problem.

I discovered this morning that wasn't exactly the case. We missed/they hid one. In a pretend makeup case, in a "nest" of used candy wrappers. And they'd managed to crush the egg when they closed it.

I'm surprised it didn't start smelling sooner...but this morning made up for any prior lack of smelliness on its part. Which is how I found it. I wasn't even certain what it was (other than extremely stinky) until I found the egg-shells while scooping out the goo-sheathed wrappers and hosing the case down.

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
03 September 2009 @ 09:12 pm

Yay for school starting soon! And I don't mean me, I mean the kids going to school! HUZZAH! (They're driving us and each other NUTS.)



 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
07 August 2009 @ 12:13 pm

Yay! I've staved off the infection I could feel starting in my ear/jaw, but the antibiotics made me nauseous, nearly threw up a couple times. Only a couple pills left, thankfully.

Jen's finally fully back on her feet, too, so we cleaned and steamed the dining area, parlor, front hall, and back porch, and the carpet looks almost like new again (white carpet, gets pretty rough looking if you don't steam it every couple months).

Spooky wasn't sure what to make of the back porch or her kennel with it completely cleaned out. When I took the kennel out into the yard to wash it down and let it dry, she laid down in the spot it usually sits and looked completely lost. It was cute.

Handling the kitchen, stairs, and upstairs hallway today, with Princess and Blondie cleaning their bedroom (AGAIN! Third time in a week): they have cat food all over the floor. Oy.

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
31 July 2009 @ 01:10 pm

I had an odd dream the other night that my parents sold the house in Ely, and that when I went to get my stuff that was still there, new owners had already moved in. Waved me to the back bedroom where my stuff was and gave me twenty-four hours to get it all out.

That dream really bothered me.

Home is home. I grew up there. I lived there my entire non-adult life. To suddenly have someone else living there who wasn't family was...disconcerting. To see strange faces in the windows. Someone else's toys in the yard.

And I started thinking about how my kids don't have that experience. They don't really have "home".

We started out in an apartment, and were there for almost four years. Rainman and Creepychick were born there. Then we moved into the house we were renting, and were there for nine years. Princess and Blondie were born there, and their older siblings grew up in that house. Now we've been in this house for almost a year, though it still doesn't feel like home.

I keep wondering when we're going to move next. If.

I'm torn because I honestly don't want to be stuck in northern Minnesota for the rest of my life, or at least not this part of it--I'm not a fan of the culture here: beer, guns, cars, insular traditionalism, stupid levels of testosterone, and snow and cold nine months of the year.

Plus there's nothing to do unless you like doing outdoors-y or nature-y things...and I don't. Camping, fishing, hiking, whatever: bleh. No thank you. I don't find it relaxing. I find it work. I find myself waiting to get back to civilization.

But I don't see my ever getting out of here. And Jen doesn't want to.

Anyways, rambling. It's odd that my kids don't have the "one house is home" experience. I'll have to ask them when they're older what they think of as "home".

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
22 July 2009 @ 07:06 pm

The house is a sty. I'm exhausted. I could use a week of sleep.

Jen's been sick with strep and bronchitis for the last two weeks, to the point where anything more than lying on the couch sleeping is physically exhausting. She could barely breathe, and would cough so hard she would throw-up. Fun.

So I've been chasing and taking care of all four kids, and the sick wife, plus the contractors have been here for a week-and-a-half, usually arriving around 7:30am. I've had maybe a total of a half-a-week of sleep in all this time.

One of the PCAs took the kids, all the kids (bless him!) to go watch movies and run around outside, and I slept for almost five hours this afternoon (and could have gone for more). SOO glad Jen is finally starting to recover.

I'm worn out. Ready to collapse. I look like a hunchbacked raccoon zombie.

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
29 May 2009 @ 02:32 pm

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.

 
 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
08 May 2009 @ 09:50 pm

So, after an aggravating day of watching idiocy in fandom--which is basically the place where it lives, so what was I expecting?--I decided to take Rainman to the movies on our last twenty bucks for the month. Which is OK, since all the bills are paid.

OBVIOUSLY we went to see Star Trek. Rebooting the series. Awesome special effects. Love the interior design of the new Enterprise, especially the engine room: IT LOOKS LIKE AN ENGINE ROOM! WOOT! And great picks for the actors. I won't say more because of spoilers, but yeah, I'm happy. Enjoyable flick. Wouldn't mind seeing more of the same.

(Oh! Holy gods is Uhura stunning! I am not normally attracted to/find attractive women with smaller chests, but I make an exception in this case as she is freaking gorgeous! Also, why does the actor playing Bones look so much like John Barrowman? And is it me, or was he sexier with the stubble?)

...minor spoiler warning... )

In different news: it seems I may have to pull out a credit card and buy a new mouse. I've got the keyboard functional again, it seems, but my mouse has finally started to finish crapping out. It's left button has been broken for some time, but I've hacked it to work (mostly) and that has held up until now; now the scroll-wheel scrolls without anyone touching it, which causes all sorts of issues: changes font sizes, backs through page history, scrolls when I'm trying to read something.

This is my 5-button 4D Intuos mouse, around a currently unaffordable $90, but I'd like to get one with similar functionality. Though if I have to buy a mouse, I might as well buy a new keyboard. I'm thinking I'll get one of the models with illuminated keys, as I find using the keyboard later at night when the light is dimmer is becoming a pain: I can't tell where the keys are in the dark when I need to punch them for macros.

Also, art update coming soon. I actually did something just for me that I'm kind of pleased with.

Plus, here's today's parting gift for critical theory nutters: this is how normal, well-adjusted people feel about your crazy.

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
20 March 2009 @ 12:06 am

Two little bits of humor from around the house:

This won't make sense unless you know this: I have a habit of yelling "Jesus Christ!" when things are aggravating me, but the "J" usually sounds like a "Ch".

The other day Rainman is pulling one of his usual antics in regards to feeding the dog or putting his school things away--I forget--and I yell "Jesus Christ!" Jen, with this snippy-clever little look, asks "Who is 'Cheese-us Christ'?" and I answer without missing a beat, deadpan, "He's Jesus Christ's brother from Wisconsin."

And just a few minutes ago, Jen IM's one of her friends to call me a "poopy-head" because I said I did not want to do some minor graphic work for a new project of hers. To which her friend responds, "Not surprising, given his colon problem."

Ba-dum-bah!

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
24 September 2008 @ 02:00 pm

Oy. What a week. First the fridge-and-freezer started acting up: the ice-cube maker stopped making ice. Then the whole thing broke down completely: it wasn't getting cold and the fridge part ended up room temperature. We lost around $50 worth of food for the month because it thawed before we noticed and could do anything about it. Worse, it was about $150 for the repair.

Luckily, we were able to salvage some of what we had in there thanks to the small standing freezer we own, which a friend and I had to haul from the old place using my car, in which the freezer did not fit -- so we lashed it to the trunk with coax cable.

Yesterday, we bring the cat in to be declawed before bringing her to the new place, but the vet calls and tells us the pre-op bloodwork shows she has diabetes, which is also why she's been peeing everywhere: can't help it, bladder isn't working right. And she has an infection because of the diabetes and the uncontrollable bladder.

Good chance this is all fixable with insulin and antibiotics and regular vet appointments. But it's another $200 this month. Not including the eventual declawing, which will be another $150.

Topping it all, my daughter's guinea pig died. It wasn't eating, and we figured that was due the stress of the move (new place, anxiety, etc), but then we noticed night before last it had developed eye gunk and labored breathing. All of it added up to classic upper respiratory infection. I'd hoped to get her to the vet in the morning for antibiotics, but she didn't make it that long.

My daughter was crushed: bawled her eyes out the rest of the day.
And Jen made me tell her.

Still haven't finished moving everything since dad didn't help on Monday like he was supposed to. Now, supposed to go today with one of our friends to get the last few big items out, as he's bringing his truck over. My back is killing me already.

I'm also terribly behind on my latest illustration contract: three noir-ish supernatural horror pieces.

On the bright side, dad brought some new stuff for the house the other day -- a nice pair of end tables, some tools for my workshop downstairs, a whole new bed for my oldest daughter rather than just a mattress, and a much needed bookshelf -- and we're making steady progress with unpacking when shit isn't raining from the heavens.

And my daughter's lazy eye is better. It's possible she may not need glasses in six months if it keeps improving. Though I realize now I forgot to give her the eye-drops this morning. Arg.

Son is on a new med regimen that will hopefully help him get his remaining (and worsening) behavioral issues under control. Had to pick him up from school once this week because the teachers couldn't handle his outbursts and disruptions. So the doc dropped one med that was likely causing his increased mood swings, agitation, and hyperactivity. Hopefully, this will stop him from driving everyone nuts.

Got to play Cthulhu for a couple hours last night. But it comprised too much wandering around with nothing happening. Remind me to write about the importance of scene structure in an investigative horror game some time, and how it should not be similar to "carefully mapping corridors and kicking in doors", like D&D or video games.

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
18 September 2008 @ 02:58 am

Haven't vanished, just still in the process of unpacking here and cleaning the basement/etc at the old house. We need more bookshelves. Lots more.

Read more... )

 
 
Current Mood: tired
 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
03 August 2008 @ 01:35 pm

One of our cats disappeared the other night. She fell out through a screen on one of the windows that had apparently separated from the frame. I ran outside after her because the last time she jumped out an open window she meowed pathetically to be let back inside; she's not an outdoor cat. But she was gone.

I figured she'd run to the back door or the backyard under the windows there to try and get back in the house, but she wasn't there either. We spent some time calling for her, then figured she'd run off to investigate something and would be back shortly.

Some time later, we heard a cat howl outside, and I went out to investigate. I'm pretty sure she'd come home and been attacked by one of the neighborhood strays, a white cat I hadn't seen before who was sitting on our sidewalk giving me attitude. I looked around, to see if she was lurking nearby but saw nothing, and politely shooed the white cat off.

A minute or two later, there was another howl from the alleyway, so we ran back there, with me almost slicing my bare foot open on a sharp rock (or something) hidden in the dark lawn. I limped down the alley with Jen, calling for the cat, but we didn't see or hear anything else.

Not knowing this had happened, the next day the kids noticed she wasn't around and asked where she was. Jen -- hoping she would come back over the weekend -- said she was probably hiding somewhere sleeping ("It isn't a lie," she said to me, "She probably is!"). But she's been gone for three days now and we haven't seen any sign of her.

We were going to have to find a new home for her as it was, but this is not the way I wanted that to happen. I don't know that she's safe and being taken care of, and I'm very worried.

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
25 July 2008 @ 10:16 pm

I'll be writing if the kids ever stop screaming their @#U@#@#&*&$#^&!!!!! heads off and GO TO BED!!!!!! Goddamnit we need my parents to take them for a weekend. Or a MONTH. I've had an almost-migraine for days thanks to their constant, endless bickering and screaming, and not-listening-despite-being-grounded but I think it is becoming a migraine right now.

When does school start back up?

Screw every other reason, this is the reason there should be year-round school: kids go stir-crazy and drive their parents MAD because they're ALWAYS THERE and no one gets a break from anyone else over summer vacation. You know why kids forget most of what they learned during the school year over the summer vacation? BECAUSE THEIR PARENTS BEAT IT OUT OF THEM!!!

AAAAHHHHHGGGGG!

-----

Continuing my world folktale/fairytale series (stories crafted to sound like old myths and folktales -- see the stories Mun and the Giant and Raven Swallows the Sun on the Well of Mimir for a couple of other examples):

...read The Faint Prince... )

-----

This title sucks.

That's about 2-and-a-half hours work. More next writing night.

 
 
Current Music: Miriam Stockley
 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
20 May 2008 @ 01:01 pm

(Taken from a conversation with Jen outside.)

J: "Are you excited about tonight?"
Me: "For what?"
J: "It's time to watch David and David go head-to-head!"
Me: "...I don't think that's something I ever want to see."

(Think about it.)

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
08 May 2008 @ 02:17 pm

There are a number of reasons I love my wife. This is one of them: Blown out of proportion.

The very first thing I thought both while and after reading that article was, "Uh-oh, look out, here comes Big Brother 'Sensitivity'. It's the new 1984." But being the guy I am and believing in regularly double-checking my perceptions, I decide to ask Jen what she thinks about this.

She gives me a look -- the "that is the goddamn dumbest thing I have ever fucking heard" look -- and says, "I'd probably laugh."

"So, you wouldn't be offended by that?"

She rolls her eyes.

"What do you think about the assertion it was rude because a woman coming through the clubhouse might find it uncomfortable?"

"That's stupid."

That, gentlemen, is exactly why I love my wife: because she's not a freakin' idiot.

...politics behind the cut... )

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
27 April 2008 @ 02:51 pm

I was going to title this post "From Seventy to Snow" and bitch about the damn weather because we had another frickin' blizzard after a week of beautiful temperatures, clear Spring skies, and no snow to be seen anywhere, but then Jen and I had the best bedtime conversation ever last night:

"I wish you were more like the men on TV?"

"Which men do you mean? Like the boxer-brief models? Or maybe the guys from the beer commercials?"

"Ew, no! You know who I mean."

"No. What men? Like...George Lopez? I don't think I can be more Mexican. Though Dave did say I look like a Mexican drug lord, but that was when my hair was longer...and I'm already pretty funny, but I can try to be funnier. Listen, 'Whu-pah!' See, I can do that."

"No, not George Lopez! Gods, men are clueless!"

"What men, then? There's all sorts of men on TV. And since we're deciding we want the other person to be more like someone else, why can't you be more like Angelina Jolie?"

"Hey now! I didn't name anyone specific!"

"I know, and look at the confusion that caused. So I am."

"So you want me to be more like Angelina Jolie? There, are my lips big enough? You want me to wake up in the middle of the night when you try to cuddle me and kick your ass all Tomb Raider-style?"

"Oh, hell-yes! What a turn-on!"

"Getting your ass kicked when you're trying to snuggle is a turn-on? Getting thrown down on the floor and pummeled?"

"You know, it's that whole pleasure-pain thing, you don't know which is which, especially because it's Angelina Jolie on-top of you. I'd be all 'Oh baby. Angelina Jolie is straddling me. I have a woody!' so the pummeling wouldn't matter."

"Fine then, I want you to be more like...the Doctor!"

"Well, I already have the hair for it."

"Not quite. It needs to be a little longer."

"It'll grow. So I have the hair, and I'm clever, intelligent, and occasionally oblivious -- "

" -- Occasionally? -- "

" -- And I travel around time and space in a small blue box."

"You don't keep a sonic device in your pocket, and -- "

" -- Pff. I work at a radio station? Hello? Sound waves? -- "

" -- Is it bigger on the inside than the outside?"

"What? The sonic device? My pocket?"

"Yeah. Do you have a pocket that is bigger on the inside than the outside?"

"The Doctor has a pocket bigger on the inside than the outside? I've never heard that."

"It's true."

"Well, you can't believe everything you see on TV."

"Wrong accent."

"Casting concerns, you know -- you get the actors where you can. Besides, there was an American Doctor."

"No there wasn't!"

"There was too! He was only in one episode or special or something. But he was American. There was an American Doctor."

"That doesn't count."

"It's canon! One of the thirteen Doctors was American."

"Hah! There are only ten Doctors."

"I told you I was a Time Lord..."

"Yeah, you're the Doctor and I'm Angelina Jolie."

"That's good. Keep a positive attitude! It's important to have goals."

Then we screwed like rabbits.

(I'm just saying that to bother Amy. HAH! You read it and now you can't UN-read it!

(But we did. HAH!))

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
06 January 2008 @ 01:05 pm

I don't know why, but I've had a number of vivid zombie dreams lately.

The other night I had this dream where zombies invaded a large city, possibly New York, where we were living in an apartment in one of those high-rise skyscrapers. It was almost Christmas-time, a warm one but with a little snow. There was blood and screaming and running.

And there was a cabal of mad scientists with skinless zombie-gorillas in cages, all their muscles red and bared for the world to see, ready to be released upon the unsuspecting public.

We desperately sought out supplies to stock our shelters -- large steel boxes with time locks and all the amenities of home -- created to try and ride out the invasion. Then our neighbors discovered our shelters, and my wife said she couldn't abandon all of them, for she was the last library of the world.

The dreams may be because I've been thinking about and working on The Children of Uru a bit lately and because I watched both I Am Legend and The Last Man on Earth around a week ago with my oldest daughter.

I've also ordered History is Dead -- an anthology of zombie-related stories set throughout history. I admit, I ordered it for the story about Viking zombies.

My oldest daughter is really getting into the old horror movies; she liked "Last Man..." up until the ending, I quote, "That's the end? That was stupid." And I was forced to agree; it kind of was stupid. Too abrupt, not enough build-up.

We also watched "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" over the last two nights, at her insistence. She fell asleep half-way through the first time since it was so late (well after midnight, if I recall correctly), and so we finished it yesterday afternoon. If we'd had it her way, she wanted to finish it that night when I woke her up ("No, my eyes betrayed me. I'm not falling asleep again.").

My other two daughters also watched the ending half with us. My middle daughter sat with her hands balled up in front of her mouth in that unconscious "nervous and worried" pose people fall into when they are really focused on something -- it was cute. And despite being scared, the younger two refused to be chased out of the room, though my son ran out the minute he was told it was a horror movie.

Oh, and my oldest daughter also wants to do a short film for Chiller's next Halloween film contest.

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
23 November 2007 @ 03:30 pm

I am so ashamed.

Last night, I was tossing an empty Pepsi bottle into the wastebasket in the bedroom, and my aim was a little off, resulting in the bottle smacking right into one of our cats -- BOP! right in the head. Now, she had just been sitting on the dresser doing nothing much, looking politely regal, and when the bottle hit her, that changed to a look of utter confusion and disbelief, which as quickly morphed into a look of bewildered hurt feelings. Then she jumped down and ran and hid under the bed, like a pouting child.

Now, I hate my cats half the time because they can be little pests and they're mean to the dog, but I felt so bad because she wasn't actually doing anything wrong or even planning to do anything wrong (well, right then). And I went and accidentally smacked her; you could tell she didn't believe it was an accident and wouldn't come out from under the bed no matter how much I apologized.[*]

On the other hand, I couldn't suppress a grin, either. I was really sorry...but it was still kind of funny. BOP! Huh...Whaaa?

( [*] This, by the way, is exactly how children act. Having cats is good practice for kids for you unmarried or childless types who are thinking about it.)

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
11 November 2007 @ 01:30 am

Something is seriously wrong with my wife...and this is just so unbelievable I can barely say it...but Jen told us tonight that...she hates Avatar! She doesn't like it at all!

I know!

What sort of sick person do you have to be to not like Avatar!? Why, it is downright inhuman! The very notion is incomprehensible! Is there help available for her? I mean, this is SERIOUS. I may have to consider divorce.

 
 
Raven Daegmorgan
28 December 2006 @ 08:54 pm

Last night was interesting.

I pulled a nine-hour shift at work: nine hours at the board doing nothing more than playing ads for the local sports game we were broadcasting. Even ignoring the fact that sports bore me to tears -- that I find nothing remotely interesting about them (particularly nothing interesting in watching/listening to them) -- I was bored and exhausted after having been there for nine freaking hours with my only task being pushing a button a couple times an hour when asked to do so.

But I'm rambling: last night was interesting because after I was done at work, I went home and found I had a craving for vanilla ice-cream with caramel topping. I raided the fridge, and there was the squeeze bottle of caramel topping calling out to me from our fridge...but we had no ice cream in the freezer.

Read more... )

 
 
 
 

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