Year in review and pre-view

Neglected my blog again, shame on me.
Its a New Year! The first month is almost gone, its crazy I tell you. So with all New Years there is some reflection on the old year and goals for the new year. So here we go...
Stuff from the old year:

• Entered the regional art competion that is hosted at Augie. Niether piece made it past the first round of jurying.
• Got to see the inside of House on the Hill. Painted it and came to hate some of its celings. Why my supervisors thought it was a good idea to have me paint the room with the hightest celing is beyond me.
• Passed all my classes for my Junior year.
• Unfortunately because of financial reasons I could not return for my Senior year. So no graduating for me this year.
• Bought a new battery for my old laptop. Its now a laptop again and not a small, awkward desktop.
• Got a new laptop after the 1Gb stick of RAM went kaput in the old laptop.
• I now can replace just about anything in a laptop.
• Learned how to jump start a car and replace the battery in one.
• Got a new bike and thus got into some sort of shape riding it to and from work every day.
• Started looking for a job in October. Still haven't found one.
  
• Ended the year kicking my friends butts in Wii bowling while totally smashed and with my pants tied together.

New year looking forward toos and things that I hope will happen:

• Hopefully will get a job before too much longer.
• Will finally move out of the house and into an apartment with Blake. *crosses fingers*
  
• Never having to put up with living with Becca again. Love you Bec, but your not easy to live with.
• Go to Cornerstone this summer.
• Go to Flatcon in the fall and maybe go to a bigger game con.
• Make some new good memories.
• Hang out with friends over the summer.
• Maybe run some game over the summer. Probably not Deadlands again, but hopefully my paranormal campaign that I've been kicking around for a while.
• Enter the regional art competition again. Maybe I'll make it past the first round of jurying.

Well thats that. Notice how I don't promiss to update more often. I've learned that doesn't work. ;)

No teeth

So I mentioned in my last post that I was going to get my wisdom teeth pulled. Well on Tuesday I went to the dentist and I got several shots of Novocaine and the dentist went to work removing teeth. I didn't even feel it when the teeth came out. I just felt lots of pressure and heard my teeth make some weird noises. I got to see the 5 teeth that were pulled. It was kind of strange seeing them sitting on the table-thingy when about an hour earlier they were in my mouth. Mom kept them. The holes are pretty much all healed now. They are just a bit tender. The one on the lower left however isn't healing as quickly. So its more than tender but its manageable with asprin. So everything is all good.

Flatcon report

This past weekend I went to Flatcon, so here is the report on the fun things I did.

Friday: Day 1
Friday afternoon Kat, Adam and I drove down to Bloomington. We arrived at the convention center got our buttons (we had buttons this year!) and free raffle tickets. We looked at the raffle items and Adam and I put our tickets in. Adam won one of the lots, I didn't, oh well. We took a look at the games that people were demoing and decided to sign up for the Exalted demo, since none of us have ever really played a White Wolf game before. Untill the demo started we took a game from Travis's Big Table of Games and played that. I can't remember the name of the game but you played a farmer and had to develope your land, get a better house, get animals, and such. Was fun but not a game I think I would ever own. Then we got some food, came back and found the table we would be playing at. I must say that I'm not too impressed with Exalted. The world, backstory and setting were interesting, but the mechanics and game itself were not too thrilling. I really don't want to be this all powerfull being and then the most chalenging thing I fight is a boulder and a log. Now the idea of "limit breaking" is interesting but I really don't want to play a charecter, much less in a game, were some could limit break and go around raping people. Not my idea of fun. That ended Friday.

Saturday: Day 2
Saturday Adam and Kat were entered in the Warhammer 40k doubles tournament. This made me try out games and by myself for most of the day. In the morning I played Petsbury, a game similar to Monopoly but your building up a petstore. It was fun and entertaining. After that I watched the Warhammer thing for a bit. That was interesting but it seems really compicated. After lunch Adam and Kat went back to the tournament and I went to go and try to play this one game. Unfortunatly not enough people signed up for it. So I ended up playing a bunch of short games with this one local gaming group. We played Jungle Speed, Incan Gold, and Three Dragon Ante. I had played Incan Gold before and that is always a fun game to play. The other 2 were lots of fun as well. I ended up picking up Three Dragon Ante from one of the venders, it was that much fun. I'm going to look and perhaps pick up the other 2 at some point, just becuase they are so much fun. By then the tournament was done and we all went to dinner. Adam and Kat didn't win anything but they had fun. After dinner I bought a couple of games, Horus and Three Dragon Ante. Adam and Kat bought Arkham Horror and an expansion for it. We all also bought a d30 or 2. Kat and I went half and half on a scoop of dice. I taught Adam and Kat how to play 3 Dragon Ante and that was fun. We decided that it would be fun to play for pennies at some point with it. We ended the night by playing Shadows Over Camelot with Travis and some of his friends. Shadows is a game I really want to get, I would have bought it this weekend but the 2 vendors who had it sold out. This time we played with the expansion which I had never done before. It was fun. Made the game a bit harder which is fun.

Sunday: The last day
Sunday we spent the morning playing Desperado, a minitures shoot-em-up game. That was a whole lot of fun. I lasted for till near the end. Kat made till the very end and was finally killed with a stick of dynamite. It was lots of fun. We played a little animal stacking game while we waited for the raffle. Neither Kat nor I won anything this time. But oh well, the money all went to Relay for Life so it was all good. I also bought and made another foam sword, I have 3 now. Now Iris, Lilly, and I can all have one big melee. Fun fun. We went out and had tasty lunch with Travis and Adam's mother before we headed back out on the road. I love eating tasty, messy tacos.

And that was my weekend. The return trip was uneventful, except for me getting attacked by a large bug at a rest stop. Next update around homecomeing and about many things.

We are in space!

Saturday night gaming has become a bit interesting. We lost one player to his libido. No, I'm not joking. This player lives in Iowa City but comes in during the weekends to play with us. Now it would be understand able if he said he didn't want to make the drive any more. But he will still be coming into the area, not as often as every weekend, but will instead spend the entire time with his "sugar mamma". *sigh* So we are now short a couple of players.
Well getting away from our lack of players, since we have so few (just me, Adam, Kat, Louis, and Blake on occasion) we are not necessarily sticking to one game. Call of Cthulhu and the ninja thing have been put on hold for the time being and we have gone over to a Savage Worlds space game. Louis is the pilot, captain and owner of our spaceship, Kat is the ship's doctor, and I am the mechanic. It's fun. Our doctor is afraid of blood and I am neurotic about keeping the engine room clean. We do shipping runs, some legal and some not so, across the galaxy. More updates on that after we play it again.

"Thats decy there." "Isnt that my skull?" "No, thats decay. We have to drill your face off."

So I went to the dentist today. First time in at least 8 or 9 years. I decided that it was time to go back, especially since my wisdom teeth have on occasion bothered me, to the point where it hurts to chew. So off to the dentist I went. The dentist looked around my mouth with the little mirror, poked at a dark spot with the poky thing. As I figured, there isn't enough room in my mouth for my wisdom teeth. So I go back in October to get 5 teeth pulled. Yes, I said 5 teeth. Four wisdom teeth and one extra tooth that's in the back. So thats going to be fun. There will be another update on this after it happens.

Oh, and if anyone gets the reference in the title you get a cookie.

Of apples and things

Sunday the Physics club went apple picking. That was fun times. I got to climb a tree, eat apples (pick them too), ride a tractor and race my friend across very muddy ground. He won. We picked 76 pounds of apples. So many apples. I took about 7lbs home with me. Tasty tasty.
Afterward we had our first boat building meeting. Since homecoming is approaching fast we decided to get started building the boat right away. Monday was our first building day. We decided on a design very similar to last year's, a V-bottom boat. We are just going to modify a few things to make it more stable and less likely to get soggy. Next building day is Wednesday, tomorrow. Whooo!

And now for something completely different. Recently the Deadlands campaign I was in ended. The GM and some of the players (me for one) were getting a little tired of it. Our GM is going to try a ninja thing with the Savage Worlds system next. For now, until that starts we are playing Call of Cthulhu. We have got one session in so far and that was pretty fun. I think I'm going to have to see if I can run a one shot for the Gamers club at Augie. I can see much sanity loss in the future. hehe
But back to the ninja thing. I created my ninja character and I think its going to be much fun to play. All my attacks and defense powers are going to be randomized since I have a "Bag of Tricks" type thing. And my character believes that all trees are secretly plotting against her. So much fun, more updates on that when it starts.

Next order of random. The first weekend of October I will be attending the game convention, Flatcon in Bloomington. I went last year and had alot of fun, so I decided to go back this year. Whoo, more games! I've been trying to get up some intrest in it at the Gamers club, but so far I don't think anyone there is that interested in going. So sad. Once it is done and I am back there shall be a full report.

An update after two long weekends

Finally updating my poor mistreated blog. Recently I have been to two family get together type events. One was a 50th wedding anniversary, the other a wedding reception. The first was on my dad's side of the family. The Orwitz side of the family trekked up to Rockford for Aunt Eunice and Uncle Vince (Bink)'s 50th anniversary. I had never realized till then just how big that side of my family is. Not only is my grandma one of 6, but many of them have 6 or 7 children. There are 7 McGuirers (Bink and Eunice's children) and all of them are tall and brawny. This is the smallest I've felt in a long time. But that was a great weekend. Full of lots of food, family, euker playing (I can't spell it, that one card game), and lots of beer drinking for those of age. We also all invaded this local hotel. I'm not sure they were ready for the 30+ of us that stayed there.

The second event was this past weekend. My cousin Mike got married in New York the previous weekend (the one where I went to Rockford). Since this is my mom's side of the family, not every one could make it to New York since the family is all in the Chicagoland area. So a second reception was held in my Uncles' bar and resterant. That was fun. Only one day instead of whole weekend. More good food, family and dancing. I took Blake to this one. He had fun and my family was glad to see him again.

Since it was a one day thing, that ment I got to spend the rest of the weekend with Blake which was fun. Friday night we made fun of the freshmen who came to Phil's (Blake's roommate) party. And yet again I got into a drunken discussion about the double slit expriment and the nature of reality with Blake's old roommate. I have no idea why I get into physics discussions while drunk, but it has happened at least twice now that I remember. The next night we had a movie night with Blake's roommates and watched "No Country for old men". That was the stupidest movie I've seen since watching "Dragon Wars". I will tell you not to waste your money on renting it. It has no endding and you can't tell what is going for the entirety of the movie. The rest of the weekend whent well and I had lots of fun.

Hopefully I'll update my neglected blog again with in the next month.

Whoo, Supervillains

Ok, so last Friday I ran my first game of Necessary Evil. I must say that it was fun. The supervillains that everyone came up with are pretty funny too. We have the Evil Wondertwins (Double Trouble), The Blackwidow (guess what superhero she is like), a gadgeteer (he makes cool things), someone who can easily hit people with semi-trucks, and the funniest ever, The Conquistador (a servitor of the Catholic church, he gives small pox to people). I'm trying to come up with a good adventure to run them through tomorrow, hopefully one that will take more than one night to play through. But its fun. I also need to find the mook rules, since I apparently don't know them. >.> Oops. More updates on the game later. Now there are tacos calling my name.