Exciting and new

I haven't had much to post lately, because I haven't been working on much new stuff. I did spend a chunk of Saturday working on some costuming stuff, which I'll be sure to post here 1) after we've worn the costumes and 2) after the desktop is back in working order.

I do have one new thing for my Etsy shop in the works--coffee mug cozies. These are not like my coffee cup cozies, which go on disposable coffee cups that you get at the coffee shop. No, these are meant to go around ceramic mugs, in an attempt to keep the contents warm for longer. I'm planning to do an experiment to figure out what type of yarn is the most insulating, and use that to make the cozies from. :) More on that 1) after I've done the experiment and 2) after the desktop is back in working order.

It never fails to amaze me how one computer being problematic can screw up my life so much. But more specifically, it's because it's the desktop that it screws up my life. I can't use it for iTunes or my craft photos until we get it fixed. :( I could load new photos onto my laptop, but then I'd still need to get them on to the desktop eventually for storage purposes.

While I'm here, I should also mention that I think I'm back in the swing of posting to Shop Etsy. It's not every day yet, but I'm shooting for three days a week, and think that's viable. :)

Oof...

Jeremy occasionally says that he thinks his cats beat him with mallets while he sleeps. I think he may not be too far off, and they seem to be turning their attention in my direction as well.

I somehow missed posting for most of last week. I'm not entirely sure why, aside from the couple of days when I was only barely in the office, if at all. And then Jeremy's cold caught up with me, and knocked me out of commission on and off from Friday to yesterday. *sigh*

Cooking experiments last week were curtailed because of my cold (and not feeling like cooking while I had it). I did try to make a Thai beef salad, but discovered that a) the beef should have been marinated in the sauce, and b) we would like it better if it had been beef and rice, maybe with a salad on the side. I've also been threatening a panang-style curry, but that still hasn't happened. Instead, I cooked up the green beans with some small pieces of bacon, which made them delicious, but produced far more than I was interested in eating. I left them out for folks to nibble on while they gamed, and came home to a barely touched bowl... I think the bacon may have made them a little slimy after they cooled off, and who wants slimy green beans?

I have a great photo of the Thai beef salad, but it's on the Frankenstein computer. On Sunday, Andrew cobbled together a computer out of parts from mine and Jeremy's desktops. We have two hard drives and my motherboard, with my external hard drive and keyboard, and Jeremy's mega big monitor and wireless mouse. All in all, it's a lovely machine, and will be even better when Andrew can bring us his device to get the data off of Jeremy's second hard drive, which wouldn't fit into my tower because of the way the fan was mounted.

I spent the majority of my Sunday at the studio, photographing a bunch of stuff that has been sitting in bins awaiting photos for ages. I mistakenly thought that I had already measured everything and had that saved on the external hard drive, but discovered when I got home that I was wrong. Project for next weekend: measuring. :) I am happy to say, though, that the natural light that my studio gets is exceptionally indirect, and spectacular for photography. Much better than it would have been in the studio with a view... a view of someone's backyard... :)

I know I never posted the 2nd post that I previewed at the end of April. That's mostly because at the moment, the plans it covered don't seem to be panning out. That's okay, though, I have plenty of other things to distract me on a regular basis. :)

Mostly, of course, this involves the Sims... which isn't terribly productive, but it is fairly entertaining. Bryan tells me that he has a copy of Sims 2 which I can have, which, of course, means that I'm gonna have to upgrade my video card and RAM... but you don't see me complaining much... ;) My computer needs a bit of an upgrade anyhow, especially as it's like 3 years old... :)

(Related conversation:

Me: "Yeah, I finally figured out that I bought it in 2003."
Grant: "Oh my god, it's ancient!"
Me: (patting the monitor) "Don't listen to the big meanie, you're not ancient.")

Right. :)

So I guess that's gonna be the next purchase... though I suppose I'll sort poke around and price things and see if it's gonna be just some upgrades, or a whole new computer... cuz I want a flat screen monitor too... :)
.

This is wrong... Macke made a page for his bot... Bottle 56's Funny Conversation Log. Well, I'll probably be mentioned there sooner or later, seeing as the damn thing always HITS ON ME... it's an AI... created by my sister's boyfriend... and it HITS ON ME!

So wrong...

Not much going on today... it's still hot in my office, which makes me very disinclined to do much work. I've spent most of the morning so far digging through old computer manuals in one of our carrels. My great find of the morning: some ANCIENT diskettes, measuring about 6 in. x 6 in., that were used in this thing called a Displaywriter. It was apparently a dedicated word processor from the late 70s or early 80s (my boss said we got ours in 1981... and we don't have it any more). Well, these things are true relics, and would make stunning wall decorations (for those who are inclined to decorate with old computer stuff... kinda like my optical mouse that I found in the Old Man's building...). So I asked my boss if I could keep them to give to my friends...

Guess who's getting presents this weekend? ;) w00t!

Megan and Macke came down for dinner last night, and we sorta talked about me starting my new game this fall, when Megan moves in with us. Unfortunately, we never got beyond the "here are my ideas" phase... the important question of "what kind of game do you guys want me to run?" never got answered... so guys, E-mail me soon! :)

The options, at the moment, are: (so that I can think and write about them a little bit more)

• All-Tremere game, set shortly after the clan's formation (Dark Ages / Renaissance game). As I said, this would mean you would get to be a pretty potent generation, but you're still neonates. Over time, you would have the potential for some high level disciplines, but they cost a LOT of XP! :) Oh, and yes, there is a weird twist to this game, but I'm not telling you what it is just yet... ;)
  
• Political Camarilla game set in Chicago. This is an alternate Chicago (i.e. not the one in Chicago by Night), based on the idea that the events of Under a Blood Red Moon, where the Camarilla, Sabbat, and Garou had a war, turned out in a different way--in this case, mutual extinction. So the hierarchy is all new, and all that good stuff. Like I said, this is related to the one-shot that I ran at my mom's house (around Christmas).
  
• Some sort of Sabbat game set in Miami. I forgot to mention that this is in contested Miami. There are Camarilla and Sabbat, but if I run this game, I want to do Sabbat... I just don't know what exactly...
  
• The "woojy" Camarilla game set in New Orleans. Lots of emphasis on investigation and research and, well, wooj. :)
  

And maybe my Changeling game is going to start again... Rafe, if you're reading this, I'll talk to you on Friday at game... :)

So I got the Sims Vacation the other day, only to realize that my computer was sadly lacking in RAM. But I managed to figure out how to remedy that situation (it's trickier with a laptop, if you've never done it before), and now my computer goes FAST. The problem in all of this is that now that the Sims moves at a decent clip, I'm far more interested in playing it than getting things done.

I'm coming very close to posting my "to do" list here, and then telling the world when I actually accomplish something. The benefit I could see in doing this is that maybe then some of my loyal readers (I think I have some of those!) will get on my case about what I should be doing with my free time. Unfortunately, I can't really think much beyond the stories that I want to write, and the need to work on The Beyond at the moment. I'm doing decently well with developing The Beyond mostly on the fly, at least for the time being. I will eventually need to work on some more of that, however, because things aren't going to stay the same forever... >:)

Other than that, I'm going to get to see The Scorpion King this weekend! I know I wasn't the only one who was disappointed by The Rock's performance in The Mummy Returns, but from everything I've seen of the new previews, it looks like he's done much better with this one. So for now, I will blame his approximately 5 minutes of screen time in The Mummy Returns, which is far too small to get an accurate assessment of his acting talent.