Happy Anniversary?

So I believe somewhere in that month of lollybloggerdom the one year anniversary of my blogging came about. We don't need to have the celebration yet though, because for me I think that's only about a dozen posts.

So what's new and unexciting in my life over the last month and a bit? Let's see, looking back I seem to remember a lot of work. Hopefully strong drink will dull that. Yes once again due to a lack of other options I went to another refinery shutdown to do refractory work. And this one was a long one let me tell you with all sorts of highs and lows. Actually it was mostly just lows, but the pay was pretty good.

The job was at an oil refinery in Southern Edmonton here so it was close to home at least which is a big plus when you're driving home after a long day. I've actually worked at this plant before a few years ago when I was also layed off from the bookstore temporarily. We had about three times as many guys on the crew as we did last time, but it took us longer to complete. Go figure. The amount of bureaucracy and safety stuff we had to go through was astounding. I'm sure a good productive day of work for us was one where we actually worked half the time.

One day I had something in my eye so I went to one of the eye wash stations that they had stationed around. I figured it would be no big deal, I would wash it out and go on my merry way. Not quite so easy though. When I open the door an alarm goes off first of all bringing a plant employee with it. I wash out my eye pretty good, and it feels alright at this point aside from being a little battered by all the water hitting it. So I'm good to go then, right? Nope, I have to go to the first aid center and get them to look at it. Once there the nurse flushes out my eye and declares that there is nothing in there. I just nod and leave. Of course after that I have to write a detailed statement. I wasn't really sure how it happened in the first place, but I made up some stuff that sounded good. I joke about all the safety now, but I guess I prefer them to be ultra-careful rather than not at all.

The j0b really dragged on endlessly near it's completion. I don't mind working (that much), but it's really hard to plan stuff when they tell you, you have to come in for one more day a few times in a row. It's also really depressing to see everyone getting laid off ahead of you as they run off to enjoy their blessed freedom. One day they had told me I was laid off which was fine by me as my enthusiasm was really at a low ebb by this point. I had returned all my equipment, taken off my coveralls, said my goodbyes and I was just about out the door when the boss tells me he needs me to stay. Honestly, I've never been closer to crying in front of a bunch of men then that point.

Alls well that ends well as they say. I got my money I survived, now I can look back on it and laugh. At least until I start working on with my Dad which could be said to be torture personified. Now I just have to spend some of that money on some desperately needed new clothes.

Onto the gaming front now. Everything was really good that I managed to jam into my schedule. The Purgatory game before last I lost my seat on the primogen council due to overconfidence and treachery. Really excellent game though. The site in Fort Edmonton park was awesome with most of the evening actually spent outside of the building walking up and down on the street. There was a great moment where my character had a tense stand-off with the entire Sentinels covenant in the middle of the road.

Paradise Lost was a lot of fun as well. Although I'm going to need a bulldozer to get through all the plot that seems to be hitting us all at one time. Personal highlight was the brawl that broke out between the Infernal and Divine right when the game was ending. The whys and the wherefores probably wouldn't make a lot of sense to others, but suffice it to say I felt compelled to jump in and get a few hits in before I started to play the peacemaker.

Sadly I missed my Crown of Thrones game. I had to work late, and by the time I managed get home, cleaned up, and run some errands I was way too late to get costumed up and play. Especially since I was working early the next morning as well. I did drop by the game briefly to get my fantastic downtime results and say hi to Shani. I was pretty sad then because it looked like everyone was having an excellent time.

Tabletop gaming was non-existent. Strangely didn't really miss it. I hear that the group switched games anyways while I was away. And in my Galactic Wars strategy game I am getting my butt kicked due to my inattention, impulsiveness, and short-sightedness. I doubt I'll miss that headache either when I'm out of the game which should be very shortly.

Last but not least is the Purgatory Saturnalia game. Which is a night where vampires celebrate, and all are considered equal except for the members of the crazy Malkavian clan who are the Lords for the evening. As Elder of the clan technically I would have been the big boss, but I decided with others that it would be more fun if I abdicated my throne and give the position to another. The vampire we chose was a low status one who believes fervently in the writings of Karl Marx. Ironically he took to his power like a duck to water. The evening seemed to go by incredibly fast with the highlight being an insult contest where the winner won by calling into question another's manhood. The frivolity was nice, but now it's really time to get into the back-stabbing and politics.

That's about it for now. I'm hoping that sometime soon I'll be able to get out and go drinking and dancing. If anyone is planning such an outing please let me know.

It's all About the Games

(BTW: This is a picture of my nephew from Christmas. I have no idea why the picture won't go where I wanted it, but it works here just as well I suppose.)

So it was the day of the very first Purgatory game of the chronicle. I had just finished my last night shift and I was more than a little wired. Having waited till the last minute to assemble my costume I was blindsided by the three weeks of solid work. I had almost nothing to wear and no time to do anything about it.

I slept for a few hours before what others might call wakefuness occurred. I would call it sleepwalking, sleep-driving, and sleep shopping for costume before heading to the game. I did manage to pick up a few things to wear, and luckily Shani arranged for me to borrow a few things from some friend's with a huge costume collection. The robe they lent me was incredible and was very appropiate as my character was the current Chamberlain of the Primogen Council. I was a little bit late to the site from a combination of picking up people, eating, and then getting lost because my brain refused to work properly.

Everyone there was dressed already, and very anxious to begin. There was a lot of pressure to huury up and get dressed so the game could start. This just confused me more, but regardless I managed to get everything together eventually.

The game itself was excellent, with a very structured Victorian feel to it. I quickly realized that with Bregan now an elder in a position of power I would have to play a very different game than I had before. Especially if I wanted to get re-elected for Primogen in the next game; no more acting completely impulsively, no more attacking people at a whim, and no more speaking without thinking. The politics flying about were impressive, and I even managed to catch a few of them in my zonked out state. The next day I had to think about some stuff that happened and realize that I had been played.

After the game despite being exhausted I managed to stay up till 5 a.m. Of course I woke up a few hours later at the time when I would usually go to bed when I was working nights. I napped on and off that day before going to the Paradise Lost game that night. It was being held at a friend's new condo on the south side which is very close to my house. Somehow I still managed to show up late for the game.

The game was interesting to say the least with me still feeling a little cut off from reality. Or should I say a little more cut off. The almost empty condo was a pretty good site, and there was a lot of craziness that night with brainwashed, and invisible people running about in abundance. As usual Tempest lost a little more of his sanity that night, and acted like a rude, obnoxious jerk. Highlights include attacking another character when he walked in the door before being restrained, calling a prudish divine "filth" several times, almost driving her to attack me, and then going to the house of the character I attacked before to wait for him to get back before again attacking him. You know you're going too far when the Infernal Wrath tells you to calm down when you're beating someone.

My sleep wackiness continued for a few days straight. Unfortunately I had to go with my Dad that Monday to a small job at the headquarters of the company without almost any sleep at all. I managed to survive that day luckily. The rest of the week was kind of a gong show with a little bit of work being done here and there amidst the disorganization and chaos.

Then my sister and her almost a year old son came for a visit. The baby was a little cranky at first, unused to strangers but he soon warmed up to become the star of the show for everyone. It was nice to see them, and I know it was nice for my sister. She doesn't have a lot of firends in Winnipeg where she lives, and no doubt she's very lonely with just the baby all day. So there was a few nights where she was out with a few friends till very late. Of course my nephew woke up a few times crying when she was gone and I had to put him back to sleep. Very successfully I might add though I let Shani change his diapers. It was a little scary when they left because I was honestly sad to see the little guy go. Usually when company comes there's a point for me where I just want to get back to my normal routine.

During all of this the last game of Shani's live Werewolf game occurred. It wasn't supposed to be the last game but I think both her and the player's advanced the plot. The game was completely hectic with my character Roman, the ultimate leader of the city. So I had to make the big decisions, and there was some big ones considering the apocalypse was coming faster then we expected. The crisis was averted thanks to some plot developments, and there was some good role-playing as someone had to sacrifice themselves to become the new father of the werewolf race. It felt a little rushed but everything ended up turning out okay in the end, and it was probably a good time to end as Shani and probably others were getting burnt out on Werewolf.

Thats all I can write for now, but hopefully I'll update again soon with more of my exciting adventures.

Where is My Life?

Lets say that I skip my usual apologies for my lollybloggerness, so that I canget right down to the story.

My tale begins almost four weeks ago in another season on a day that has been come to known as Snowpocolypse 2006. I woke up relatively early after staying up late the past night to go see "V for Vendetta", a very excellent movie which seems unfairly classified as an action film. Shani had stayed over that night, and as usual I didn't sleep that well being unused to not having my bed to myself (...and not for any other reason). Anyways the world was a very snowy wasteland and I dreaded going outside. Unfortunately there were a plethora of activities that I had to do that day.

Of course there was the shovelling of the mounds of snow. A very tiring task which took me almost a hour and a half. After that there was the preparations for my friend's sons birthday party. He was turning four and of course I had yet to buy a gift. So we had to drive on the horrible roads to the local Toys R Us to search for a present. Eventually we picked up something and we headed out to the party on the north end. Another example of driving hell I assure you. The party was nice, the birthday boy very cute, and it was good to see all my friends who I never get to see (I just had the thought that I should abbreviate this often used phrase to "f.w.i.n.g.t.s"). Him turning four made me feel my age, and I really felt like joining the other kids in running around without any cares smashing the pinata.

To stay for a while I had to sacrifice my plans on a short nap that afternoon, so I drove Shani home and headed all the way back home to the south side. I was only there a short time before I had to head back into the icy hell to my first night shift in the northwest at a cement plant. I was really dreading going to work that night for good reason; I hadn't had a lot of sleep, I had not had a restful day, I had no caffeine and the long night loomed endlessly. Obviously I survived that night, but only by a small margin I assure you for the purpose of being dramatic.

The first night was actually the hardest we all worked that entire project. Everyone seemed to jump into the tasks and we got a lot done. Despite all the activity the twelve hour night seemed to drag on, but eventually it ended. Honestly at the end of shift I was more exhausted than I've ever been before in my life. It's a small miracle that I managed to drive home without falling asleep at the wheel and crashing into a lamp post. It's like my dad says, "Luckily the car knows it's way home." I've never loved my bed so much as I did that morning when I got home.

So this began my routine of sleeping all day, waking up for an hour, then going to work. In contrast to the first day we did almost nothing the next few days. The day shift finished most of the stuff we had to do so we were on standby. This meant doing a few little jobs here and there with the rest of our time being spent in our trailer doing nothing. If you think twleve hours is a long work shift wait till you spend it doing almost nothing. I felt almost criminal on Sunday night to be getting double time to sit and play cards. It wasn't too bad to hang out with the other guys as we had a lot of other people my age on the night crew, which was quite different from the old and bitter bricklayers that I'm accustomed too. So time was wasted, thirty bucks was lost, and eventually we had work to do. I won't bore you with actual details of the work but suffice it to say my involvement was confined to sweeping, carrying, and fetching. Except for the time when they let me handle a power tool, and for when I had the pleasure of painting a pipe with very sticky tar.

The project went on with me working for thirteen days straight. I'm not sure how other people handle working graveyards on a permanent basis, but all I know is that by the end I was starting to get very tired. I was also really missing any kind of a social life and the smallest amount of leisure time. Judging by the morale I wasn't alone. I managed to see Shani a few times in the morning when I would pick her up and we would go out for a McDonald's breakfast.

There would have been a fourteenth night, but that was the first game of Purgatory so I took it off. When I told my boss he said that I didn't need to come back Saturday night then either. I assumed at first that he was being snotty because of my request but he explained that Friday was going to be the last day anyways. I was relieved at that because Saturday was Paradise Lost, but I was sad to not be getting another night of double time.

I'll continue my exciting tale another day as this is getting long, and I am growing weary.

Can't believe its been two weeks since my last post. I'm really getting bad with this lollyblogging thing, and from the look of the future I won't have a lot of time to update soon.

So not too much has happened lately that is really exciting, but did you really expect anything different?

There was a really good Paradise Lost game a couple of weeks ago. I won't bore anyone with the particulars, but there was a lot done. There was much mocking of evil wannabes, discussion of the sexual problems that would have arised in Brokeback Mountain, and the taking advantage of emotionally traumatized women. In other words a pretty typical night for Tempest.

Before the game a friend invited us out for dinner and the place we agreed on was Gino's, a small Italian place just off Whyte Avenue. My dinner was excellent if a little spicy. One of the things I've noticed about my advancing age is that my stomach doesn't seem to handle hot food so well anymore which is unfortunate as I like everything spicy. The conversation was of course fabulous with a variety of topics. Among them was Emmet almost perfectly guessing all the major Oscar winners.

Going to a place like that reminded me of how much I like the small out of the way restaurants like that. Most of the places that I've gone out to lately have been the big food chains like Moxies or Earls and it has always been a real pain. It seems like lately that these places are getting busier and busier, you have to wait usually an average of an hour to get seated on the weekend and when you do the place is crowded and noisy. I was talking to someone recently, and he was saying that his friend was an award winning chef from France who opened a small restaurant here. I guess from what he was saying it wasn't doing too well which is really sad if you think about it. It's very true that Edmonton has no food culture at all. I'll start to do my part though by heading to some of these smaller places in the future.

I received my Purgatory character finally, and let me tell you it was pure agony waiting as Bregan was one of the last characters to be created as I was very late handing my submission in. The character's fantastic with lots of power and neat extras. It was a little strange though as the organizers had to build the characters up from their starting point at the last game. I understand the necessity completely, but apparently some people ended up with almost the same power level they had in the last game after they spent all of their experience.

There was another character creation session for Crown of Thorns, the new angels Arthurian game. I probably should've taken more initiative and discussed more stuff to involve my character with other players, but I think I'm going to play Malegant as completely new to Camelot and court. The analogy I'm thinking of is the kid in high school who skates by and is really popular, but then when he hits University he's a small fish in a big pond. Instead we started to watch Excalibur which is a big nostalgic favorite of mine. Others there didn't feel the same as there was a lot of group mocking of the admittedly dated and cheesy movie. It was a good time with lots of geek social talk which is always fun for me.

Just this last week I started working once again with the bricklaying stuff much to my dismay. It didn't start off well at all either as they had me working at the workshop doing the most pointless job ever. Myself and another kid were going through pallets of bricks sorting the good ones from the bad. Definitely not the most exciting task, and it didn't help that my co-worker was a pretty quiet guy. Quiet guy plus quiet me equals a very long quiet day.

Anyways we should have been done on Thursday, but of course we didn't get the bricks brought to us so we had to sit around and do nothing for the afternoon. This meant as well that I would have to come in on Friday morning to finish everything up. So I did and we spent about two hours sorting the last of the bricks before the head guy comes in. Apparently we were too picky and the bricks that we had just pulled out were all actually fine. So we wasted hours doing something completely pointless. In addition he said that we would have to go through all the pallets that we had sorted in the previous days and recheck them. That's when I said that I had to be somewhere and took off. I know that there's many people out there who don't care what they do, who would say that it doesn't matter because they're collecting a paycheque. I realized that I'm not one of those people at all, I don't know what I want to do but I'd defintitely like it to matter at least a little bit.

Things get even more scary from there. There's a cement plant that in Northern Edmonton that's temporarily closing down for repairs, and obviously whenever a place like that is not open they're losing a lot of money. So we have to go in and get everything fixed up on a very tight schedule. That means working twelve hour days which means that with a hour commute I won't be having a lot of free time in the near future. That also means that they need to have people working there 24 hours a day, and lucky me I got stuck with the night shift.

It's been quite a few years since I worked graves, and from what I remember I really didn't like them. I'm not a very light sleeper but I can imagine that I'll have some trouble sleeping during the day. The other downside is that I'll be working with a guy that I know and hate. He's rabidly pro-union, no doubt looking to impress everyone so that he'll end up union president some day. I'm already not looking forward to him getting on my case about my non-commital to bricklaying and the union.

Also very bad is that I'll have to miss the first Crown of Thorns game which makes me sad. Right now it looks like we have to be finished before the 31st so I am actively praying that I can make it to the first Purgatory game. My character is the Chamberlain after all so I definitley have stuff to do, and I only have a couple of games before my Primogen seat is up for re-election. I have to start my threatening early because the lord knows that I'll never win the election on popularity. Right now it looks like I should be able to make it. I just hope we dont screw up this job too bad so that we have to stay later.

Addendum

So my list of bad qualities was far from complete apparently.

I totally forgot to mention my bad MSN habits. As it has been pointed out to me, and it has dawned on me I have many; never turning my status to "Away" when I'm away from the computer, abruptly leaving conversations hanging, and replying in vague monosyllables. There's probably many more, but that's all I can think of right now. There ends up being a real conflict there between my desire to be polite, and my dislike of electronic communication. I really don't want to be rude because my MSN contact list is pretty exclusive. I don't have everyone I've ever met on it like Shani. And people really need to be aware of etiquette even on these new-fangled communication techniques.

I've never been a letter writer, or a phone talker, or a MSN chatter. Of course I can't really say I'm a chatter box in person either, but there can be times where I'm quite verbose. Unfortunately most of the time my chatter is related to geeky topics.

When I worked at Toys R Us I had more than my fill of geeky talk, that's pretty much all we did all day. When I worked in the female dominated bookstore that outlet pretty much vanished, and I think I've been storing it up for years.

Anyways to summarize I'm aware of the MSN problem, and its being addressed. I formally apologize if I've offended anyone, I'm sure you know who you are.

So nothing really exciting to report this week. I'm starting to get my butt in gear which is a good sign. You know a rolling stone collects no moss, and all of that. Finished my taxes already this year and as usual my lucrative return is going to pay off my annual insurance bill. Someone please remind me not to get in any more accidents. Oh well it's nice that it's taken care of so that I don't have to worry about it for the rest of the year.

There hasn't been any super-exciting job prospects, but I've been putting a few resumes out there. I'm definitely not at the point yet where I'm going for quantity over quality, and I hope I don't reach it. The construction business seems to be building up slowly to the point inevitably where they'll become desperate enough to hire me again. Wish me luck in getting a regular job before that happens.

Not really a lot of exercise happening, but I'm justifying it by saying that I'll run myself to death once winter is over. I don't have a gym membership, and I don't really have a lot of indoor options so I'm not sure what else to do. Of course winter just started here apparently. While I must admit the snow is quite pretty and good for the farmers it's a pain in the ass, and I'd trade it gladly for clean streets and warmer temperatures. You would think I have a higher tolerance as we haven't really had any winter this year, but I'm ready for what little we have to be done.

And then of course there is the live games. March will be simply lousy with games, and the excitement is building. Of course excitement leads to dread as there's a scramble to get costuming and everything ready. To top it off there's two period games I have to be prepared for.

There's really no clever ending here, so...Bye.

Downbeat

I'll try not to be too depressing here as everyone has problems, and who really wants to read that day after day. I know I wouldn't.

Anyways, the last couple of months haven't been great for me to sum it up succintly. I've come face to face with many of my negative personality traits, and it's pretty sucky let me tell you. Instead of working on my resolutions I seem to be actively working against them now.

One of my biggest problems lately is laziness which is strange as I've always considered myself a fairly active person. I know that at many of my jobs they frequently had to tell me to slow down and take a time out for a second as I became wrapped up in my current task. I can tell you that it's very true that laziness begets laziness. I've been very lazy, and it is indeed a vicious circle. As I get in my rut it gets harder to get out

I've always maintained that I like to do things at my own pace and timing, but I'll name it for what it really is. Procrastination. Like many people I have it in spades. I keep on putting things off till tomorrow, and then sudeenly weeks have passed and stuff still hasn't been completed. Importantly this really affects my job search or hopefully my career search which is a huge thing to me right now. There's no work in this bricklaying thing currently, and besides I really don't want to pursue that anyways. This means that I should be getting off my ass and looking for something better. A prospect I dread as looking for employment has always equalled begging in my opinion. Especially when you don't have a lot to offer right off the bat.

The other big thing lately is my anti-social tendencies. Being by one's self is always easier and I've embraced this a little too much lately. This really isn't good at all especially when it comes to my relationship with Shani. I blame World of Warcraft, it's worse than crack for me lately.

I shouldn't complain too much though. At B.P.'s on Thursday there was a lot of good conversation that I became involved with. Much of it actual adult stuff like who to invest with, and things that you need to do to sell your house. It was completely crazy let me tell you. On Friday I had a nice visit at a lonely friend's where we had really good pizza and conversation. Saturday was a very long day of gaming involving a trip to another friend's shiny new loft (I want) to make characters for the upcoming Kingdom Come game; Crown of Thorns. There was a lot of people there, but I didn't really engage anyone so I kind of felt like the wallflower at the high school dance. My character King Malegant isn't really involved with anyone off the start so I didn't have a lot to discuss anyways I guess. Much of it was no doubt due to the fatigue which always seems to accompany me on Saturdays lately. I had planned on going to the Suburbs after, but that night dancing seemed as possible as me travelling to the moon.

...and I still don;t know good, punctuation?

Part of the problem is that I don't tend to see my positive points. I know they're there, but to me those things are a matter of course. They're not something special, they're how everyone should act.

Anyways that's enough complaining for now. Although I'm sure there'll be more later, I'd like to work on some of this stuff. One of my pet peeves is people who complain about stuff, but never do anything about it.

Not really sure whether this is ending on a positive note or not, but I'll keep you posted. Maybe, when I get around to it.

I Fought the Blog...

Please believe me that in the past couple of weeks I've tried to make my blog prettier and alter this skinny template. Unfortunately I haven't been too successful as you can see. I've even had to start over from scratch because I messed the template up and forgot how to fix it. Part of the problem is that I'll make changes and then try to update it, but nothing will change immediately. I'll come back later and my blog is suddenly completely distorted. I probably don't have a stunning career ahead of me as a web designer. My last template I copied completely off of Emmet, but this time I'm going to put some effort into it and figure it out on my own.

So the watchword for my life in the last few weeks would have to be unreality. The Saturday before last was the monthly Paradise Lost game. It was a great game with some really awesome roleplaying all around, and some nasty plot developments. Shani missed the game unfortuneately as she was under the weather. I felt like I was in the groove with Tempest that night as I've completely given up hope trying to play him as a complete bastard, I don't think I have it in me to play someone irredeemable in every way. No doubt the Divine would disagree with the statement about Tempest being nice sometimes, but I'm getting to the point where I can justify most of his horrible actions as him actually helping that person. In addition there was the lovely, sappy, tender moments that provided an excellent contrast to his being rude and obnoxious.

For the past couple of weeks I've been completely obsessed with World of Warcraft. Since I bought it there's been many times where I've lost interest or focus, and haven't played it for a long period of time. This is not one of those times. I started a new character so that I could play with a friend that just got into it, and I didn't take it very seriously as I knew he would grow bored and move onto something else very quick. The original idea was to mess around and have some fun for a bit, but I ended up getting hooked. I've played my new character like mad quickly outstripping my friend's character in level. You can also blame WoW for the suckiness of this post as this is my second attempt at it. The first one was lost when the game crashed forcing me to restart.

Shani's werewolf game was outside on Sunday in the River Valley. It was a really warm day everywhere in the city except for the park apparently. It was a good game but short as many people have no concept of dressing for the weather. The attendance was small, and it was one of those games where weird inexplicable events start to happen and no one has any really idea what's going on. Inevitability everyone stands around discussing opinions without getting anywhere, and to be honest it's really not my favorite type of game. On the plus side one of my character's rivals got killed by another werewolf at the game which was an unexpected bonus.

On actual real news I'm getting old I discovered. Shani and I met a bunch of people at Suburbs a couple of weeks ago for some of Dervish's Dj'ing. The music was pretty good for being pretty well exclusively techno, a genre I'm not the biggest fan of. Like I said there were plenty of our friends there with conversation being impossible as we were sitting next to the speaker. A lot of people were wearing earplugs which you can actually buy out of a candy machine there. probably would have been a good idea as my old ears can't take all that racket anymore. Shani was tired so she left pretty quickly after we got there. Although I wasn't that much in the mood I tried to get on the dance floor as much as I could. Where I quickly realized that I'm big time out of shape as something in my lower back objected to the movement. To top that off I started to feel a little faint, like the kind you get when you haven't eaten. So I ended up leaving early as well before quickly heading to A&W's.

There's a couple of live games coming up which I'm getting excited for. Crown of Thorns is the new Kingdom Come game set in Arthurian times. I'm playing the evil King Malegant which should be great fun as it looks like the relationship web is going to be very tangled indeed. The first game is this Saturday where everyone is going to make their character and hopefully talk about enemies and stuff. I'll have to make sure and research some stuff on Malegant so that I have some kind of an idea on how to make him.

Purgatory is the other one of course, and I'm bringing back Bregan for some more shenanigans. They're accepting the write ups now, and while I have the general idea of where I'm going to go I still have to work out some specifics and get it all on the screen the way I want it.

Once again I'll make the empty promise here that I'll blog soon.