Yesterday was my birthday, bringing me a year closer to being fertilizer. The day started off well, with a visit from some neighbourhood raccoons. They come to our back door from time to time, and my wife fed them pita and avacado, ensuring they will come back often. We got some pictures that turned out poorly, and I may put some up here eventually. My wife put up a nice post on her blog about the experience.

My son is sick, so I didn't do much in the way of true birthday celebration, however, a friend of mine got me Team Fortress 2 (for the PC) and it runs beautifully on my machine, which is a relief. It is a bit of a change playing it on PC instead of Xbox, but a welcome change since now I have access to the heavy update, and soon I will be knee deep in Sandvich.



After the boy went to sleep, we watched Sweeney Todd. It was excellent, and even as a musical it was easy to follow the story. I wasn't expecting it to be so graphic, but I wasn't disappointed either. We made cupcakes, and I quickly inhaled 3 of them, then took my time and savored the 4th. I still have a few left over, but the chances of them making it through the day are slim.

As soon as I get some birthday money (from my mom...naturally), I will be picking up the Adventurer's Vault, which I have perused and found to my taste. There are no D&D supplements out this month that I am interested in, so I will probably wait for Martial Power, which comes out in November.

My forums are up and running, with two play by e-mail games going concurrently, a third (non-D&D) game may be starting up soon, which pretty much brings you up to date with my life.

It's never a good sign when I have to log into my blogger account again...means i've been away for far too long. I've been busy, not so busy that i couldn't throw a post up now and then, but busy nonetheless. So a bunch of short stuff for today I think.

(On an unrelated note, it always amazes me that nonetheless is a word.)

I am on my second or third week of the play-by-post campaigns. You can take a look at the progress at the Myrador Forums. There are two PBP games going on, and both are going well (near as i can tell).

My actual D&D campaign is going very well also, and takes up a great deal of my off time. The main Myrador site has fallen behind, with no major updates in a while, but I aim to change that shortly by finishing the overland map and getting it up this week.

Music - Flight of the Concords (if they can be considered music). Specifically, I have repeatedly been watching the video for "If you're into it".



Books - Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" series. I just finished book two, and I am really enjoying them, probably only because they have Vampires and Werewolves (SPOILER!). Honestly, if you can get past the 90210 high school dramaz, and the "OMFG this is so Cliché", there is a really deep and interesting book about...well...vampires and werewolves i suppose, and the difficulty of having relations with said entities.

There is a lot of stuff I really need to get around to, that I just can't seem to get off my ass and get done (*cough* blogging *cough*). So that is all for now. I am making a commitment to you right now that I will update at least twice a week, for a whole week! (this post counts as one of them)

ok...so, long story short, i forgot i had a blog...it happens, life is busy, i've been working a lot on a campaign setting for 4th edition dungeons and dragons, as well as making sure i am up to speed with my pen and paper campaign, planning two play-by-post campaigns (which started today) and playing in a Qin campaign sunday nights.

I have everything pretty much ready for the Play by post campaigns, the pen and paper one is ready, and the sunday night one is doing good too, so i think I am getting back on the blogging horse...or wagon...or horse drawn wagon.

you will have to forgive me, it's been a while.

i am still perpetually web-stalking sweetafton23. I now follow her on twitter, lj, youtube, and wordpress (but not myspace...never myspace). She is a little young for me I know, but then I am a little too "married with kid" for her, so i think our relationship could work out...at least in parallel-dimension comic form. (neil gaiman could write it, and it could be illustrated by sam keith). Maybe that's a little too creepy for this blog, so i will skillfully change topic in a way that will make you forget i wrote that.

I haven't bought a new video game in a long time. I thought long and hard about soul calibur 4, but yoda is just weak sauce compared to vader.

Did you know Keira Knightly was in Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace? She played Sade or whatever her name was (padme's twin/clone person). I had no fucking clue! Seriously, I have always said that they looked alike, but to put her in a movie as someone's twin, that's balls right there. (bravo lucas...bravo).

Back to games. Too Human was something I was going to wait for reviews on, and i'm glad i did. I thought briefly about spore, but then i remembered that i only like will wright for his random knowledge, and that i generally don't enjoy his games. i think i am saving myself for fable 2.

Rock Band 2 came out today I think...lemme look that one up...ok...yesterday. Whatever. I can't afford that just yet, i will wait until i can walk into a store and just buy one, instead of searching all around the city "wii-fit" style for a copy.

I never finished gears of war, and actually didn't even enjoy the small bits of it i did play. I will go back to it eventually, maybe.

my paragraphs are getting shorter and shorter, which means i am probably running out of interesting things to say, so i'll cut this short.

Lots of things caught my eye on the internet this month, and with the month drawing to a close, i figured I would share a couple of them.

First of all, my new wallpaper, on all 4 (soon to be more) of my computers.

Then there is a dramatic reading of a real break-up letter. I nearly pissed myself laughing at this one.

Thanks to Sweetney, I now know the joy of Cake Wrecks.

I have two new favorite Facebook Apps: Send Pokemon (which i am sure drives all my friends crazy) and D&D: Tiny Adventures, which is just all together awesome fun if you are into D&D at all. Search for either one of them if you are interested.

I am collecting as many pictures as I can of the camping trip and I will do a nice video montage of them later to the tune of "Take Me Higher"...stay tuned for that one.

Got back yesterday from the LOA Camping Trip. Had a fabulous time, but at the same time it was great to get home and see my wife and son. Rather than write the whole blog post, I will just copy my post from the LOA Forums.

Walking up to the campsite for the first time was a surreal experience for me. Kamui and I walked up and Methus was there right away to make us feel at home. Got our tents set up and lamented at how small mine was (I had tent envy all weekend, but thanks to FireEyes I don't think mine was the smallest). With my tent set up, I turned around and there was Solf with some happy juice. (I was amused at the name happy juice until saturday morning when I decided that happy juice and myself were no longer friends)

Friday night was lots of handshakes, more than a few laughs (McLovin...heh), and I failed/shamed my fellow canadians by heading in for some sleep before everyone else. (America 1, Canada 0)

Saturday morning came much faster than I expected, the fire was already going by the time I crawled out of my tent. More conversations went on while I stared at the flames trying to wake up.
Saturday afternoon came around and it was time for River Wars 2008. We headed down and I got into the raft with the Geek Squad (Patent Pending). We were weaponless, had 4 people, 3 paddles (one of them broken), but that wouldn't stop us from getting into the fray. For the first bit, we approached a heavily armed raft and began the attack. (Jerith|Tony fell out during that exchange, and Livvy got some pictures so I imagine they will surface eventually). We beat a hasty retreat, and decided that the lead boat needed to be attacked. We headed down river to begin the attack, and felt the pain of not having any weapons once again. We decided that there was only one thing we could do, and headed back to the other rafts to call a truce and see if we could procure a weapon or two. We got a little more wet (i'm not sure how that was possible) and Kamui got pulled overboard but Demeth's boat was nice enough to lend us a weapon which we immediately put to use by attacking them (i got a little talking to for that so we decided to put our new weapon to the test against the lead raft again). The attack was successful, with Brimstone almost losing an eye thanks to a well placed shot by Kamui. I could go on and on with this but take my word when I say it was a blast.
Back at the camp we dried off and hung out until poker. Our table moved the action around an awful lot and I took the early chip lead (it didn't last). We were sure Brimstone was going to be sporting a new cowbell before the night was through, but he slow-played it like a pro and spent as much time as possible away from the table, and managed to just be second out. Kayelle was collared and took it all in stride, I didn't last too far past that point either. The cards were amazing quality (thanks Brim).
Saturday night was more drinking, some more shots, and a great time. I went to my tent around midnight to take a little break and woke up at 8 in the morning on Sunday. (America 2, Canada 0)

Sunday was bittersweet for me. Seeing people pack up and head out, it was hard to deny that the trip was coming to a close. Thank god we had creed playing all morning to lift our spirits (or "Take Me Higher" as some would say). Brimstone saved the day with his Durango (my hero).
Went for a swim and got to show off my amazing football skillz (was it just me, or were there far too many warm pockets of water?). After that it was drying off, lunch and then Jerith|Tony ran his 1st Annual Dungeons and Dragons adventure. It was great fun, and everyone who played got some nice trophies. (Dice, dice bag, clipboard, character sheet, pencil, and power cards...everything a gamer needs).
I learned how to play dominos and 4 wins later I was just about ready to proclaim myself domino grand champion of the words. I was put in my place though.
After that was hanging around the camp fire, telling jokes (horrible, horrible, jokes...) and just generally hanging out. I made sure to not head to my tent until absolutely everyone else had head in to theirs though (America 2, Canada 1)

Monday we took off, and the drive home seemed so much longer than the drive there. Can't wait for next year.

Some other memories:

- Pamela becoming the new offical spokesperson for Alexander Keiths India Pale Ale
- As soon as the Beer Bitch was named, Brimstone yelling "I'M ALL IN!"
- Those two people at the campfire making out and groping each other. (they were going at it so long I thought they were paid entertainment)
- Kamui's face when he was first named McLovin (and every other time he was called McLovin for that matter)
- Those potatoes sunday night, I don't know who cooked them (Lady A? Livvy? Pam? FireEyes? God?) but whoever it was, TEACH ME!

As usual with this sort of thing, I brought a camera but didn't take a single picture. I would just much rather be out there having fun than hanging back with a camera. As such, no pictures yet, but I am collecting all the pictures I have and I will upload them to Picasa in the next day or two.

So a member of my guild (LOA) has a sister who is trying to win this Pepsi Superfan contest over at Much Music. I figured I would throw a link up on my blog so that my three readers could help her out. You get one vote a day, and if you don't vote then the dreaded Ashley could win, which I think we can all agree would be a travesty.

My weekly gaming days have been re-branded. Although the activity curriculum stays the same, they are no longer "D&D Game Night", they are now "Tactical Playtime Training Days". In the words of our almighty leader:

"Let us band together with the one singular vision of creating a world based on the simple ideology of making fun the top priority."

- Dr. Steel

I also made buttons! These will be given out at the next gaming day (tuesday), with encouragement to spread the message.