:: The Marsh King's Daughter ::

:: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 ::

One True Thing

Apparently I came away from my undergraduate years with at least one important lesson deeply ingrained:

When falling on ice, don't try to break the fall with your hands. Instead, you should bounce on your butt the way nature intended.

Owie... but not nearly as "owie" as twisting your wrist and ripping the flesh from your palm (as I know from way too much experience). Go, me!
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:: Karen | 2:42 PM | | [+] ::
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Mixed Blessings

The bad news is that our Cleveland collaborators may not make tomorrow's scheduled visit after all, due to terrible weather in their area. (Not that it's so much better here: my boss is home with his kids today b/c schools are closed, and spouse is working from home 'cos roads are yucky and sidewalks are worse. I only came in today b/c I needed to prepare for tomorrow's lab visit....)

The good news: if the lab visit is cancelled, maybe I'll be able to catch up on a little gamestuff tonight....

UPDATE: ...or maybe not. Still no final word from them. I'm willing to bet they'll wake up in the morning, survey the nasty roads and/or air delays, and call it off; but sounds like they're waiting 'til then to decide one way or the other.
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:: Karen | 11:44 AM | | [+] ::
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Game Convergence

In my ftf Amber game, "Power of Threes" (which we played yesterday), the PCs' voyage to a state funeral (aboard Gerard's ship, the Bonnie Lass) was interrupted several sessions ago when the whole ship was swallowed by a giant metaphysical Space Squid with (apparently) an entire universe in its belly. We spent a while drifting lazily through space on the Bonnie Lass (which conveniently enough held atmosphere and generated its own gravity), trying to figure out how to get out.

After finding a planet inhabited by former vassals of House Barimen and defeating the Thelbane soldiers/bounty hunters who showed up there to try to bring us back to Chaos, we've finally got a way to get out of the Space Squid: we're taking the Thelbane spaceship.

Conveniently for us, one of our PCs was an astronaut on her homeworld. Her player immediately started asking detailed questions about the ship.

"Uh.... Can I get back to you?" said the GM. "I haven't really thought much about the layout...."

"So, uh, how many people did you say this thing holds?" I asked. "'Cos, er, I'm working on a spaceship for another game and I've got the floor plans on my laptop...."

Turns out the Thelbane crew is exactly the same size as the crew I designed our Lunar Ellipse ship for. So I'll be flying more-or-less the same ship in two otherwise unrelated games! Hah!
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:: Karen | 3:54 PM | | [+] ::
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Shiny New Icon

Yep, I'm having waaaaay too much fun with Photoshop.
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:: Karen | 2:35 AM | | [+] ::
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WISH 82: Three Word Summary

Wow, it's been quite a while since I've done one of these....

This week's Game WISH asks:

Sum up one or more games that you GM or play in 10 words or less. (Three is best, but not everybody is that pithy.) Don't restrict yourself to current games if you have great ones in the past.

I'm sticking with my current games, for now:

House of Cards (Amber/Everway): Everything is connected.

Power of Threes (ADRPG): Trust no one. Especially family.

Masks (Call of Cthulhu): Nyarlathotep wants YOU.

Lunar Ellipse (GURPS): Rigs... in... SPAAAAAAACE!

(...because who can resist a Muppet Show reference?)

And I can sum up much of my past D&D dungeon-crawl experience in another handy three-word phrase: Always Look Up.

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:: Karen | 6:43 PM | | [+] ::
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The Illusion of Cluefulness

I decided I should compare the (tentative) dimensions of my Jules Verne Deathtrap(tm) for Lunar Ellipse to a real-world space vehicle, to see whether my draft design is egregiously over- or undersized. So I used the power of the Internet to find info about the Space Shuttle.

Oh, my.

Space shuttle height: 56.58 ft
JVD proposed height: 48.0 ft

Space shuttle length: 122.17 ft
JVD proposed lenght: 120.0 ft

I'm not sure whether to be proud or alarmed!
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:: Karen | 5:46 PM | | [+] ::
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Here's One For All You Lady Vesper Fans

Today's IMDB Movie/TV Quote of the Day:

DARRIN

Sam, don't expect your mother to be gracious. She doesn't do imitations.

It could just as easily be Lucas talking about his mother-in-law....

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:: Karen | 10:11 PM | | [+] ::
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Behind, Behind, Behind

I'd meant to get a draft of my Lunar Ellipse spaceship specs done this weekend. I've got part of a sketch, and some of the numbers crunched, but I've got at least another couple hours of work before it's ready to submit.

Saturday was taken up with another gaming commitment, at which I at least got to bounce a silly idea or two off teammate Cathy. But no time for number-crunching.

Sunday should've been the perfect time to get it done, but I was just wiped all day. I pulled out my notes and stared at them for a while, but my brain kept shutting down.

Last night I was all ready to jump in when I got home from work... at 9:30pm. But spouse looked over and mocked me: "You're jumping right back into work? But you just got home, and you're exhausted. You need to rest." So I ate my dinner and watched "X-Men: Evolution" (TiVo knows we're geeks) and realized yes, I was staring glassy-eyed at my surroundings and really ought to go to bed.

Today. Today, when I finally get 'round to my first meal of the day -- probably around 5pm or so -- I will go get a burrito and I will go home and I will finish my draft design and character.

But I probably won't get a HoC post out in time for tonight's GM round. Bummer.

Apologies to both Li and Ginger for being so far behind....

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:: Karen | 3:05 PM | | [+] ::
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Unforseen Benefit of Living in the Midwest

When your gracious gaming hostess decides to experiment with a new Thai vegetable curry recipe, which turns out just a little too spicy-hot for everyone else's tastes, your tested-in-the-fires-of-Texas-cuisine self gets to take home a lot of yummy leftovers.

Mmmmm. Curry.
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:: Karen | 8:30 PM | | [+] ::
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Unbreakable

Briefly IMed with Ginger this evening, in part to tell her I've started work on our spaceship for Lunar Ellipse.

Came home and made matzoh ball soup, 'cos I was having a craving.

Upon staring at the rapidly-hardening residue in the mixing bowl, considered suggesting to Li that the British team should use matzoh meal as a major structural component in our spaceship....
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:: Karen | 10:36 PM | | [+] ::
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Giftage!

I had a very nice time at my parents' for Christmas and my birthday. For us, Christmas day is all about trying to make each other laugh as hard as possible with bizarre gifts. My sister is usually the queen of this -- past highlights have included the "Finger Ponies" ("It was a tossup between this and the Finger Puppies, because the package for those was misspelled 'Finger Pupies', but these look like aardvarks!") and a cute stuffed hedgehog (actually a dog chew toy) that grunts when you squeeze it -- but alas, due to a new job and a recent move, she wasn't able to join us this year.

However, spouse did a great job taking up the slack.

For Christmas, he gave me a poseable stuffed cobra (yay, zoo gift shop!) and a Perky Goth t-shirt. The latter was especially fun because it meant I got to explain to my parents what a "goth" is. (When I then opened the box of three perfectly respectable long-sleeved t-shirts from my mom -- one teal, one orchid, and one dark grey -- she said gleefully, "Something for your perky days and for your goth days!")

Then, for my birthday, spouse got me... an autographed photo of Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia! Hahahahaha! I love it!

But the best thing ever, also for my birthday, was the long dagger with a wavy, kris-like blade and a leather sheath. It totally rocks! (He picked it up at the Irish festival this summer on a whim, and was surprised at how much I like it.) I must remember to take it to my next f2f Amber session to show off -- it's a very Genevieve sort of blade.

When my parents asked what I was gonna do with it, I told them I really ought to put it on the side table where I display beanie Cthulhu. Then I got to explain to them what Cthulhu is....

No wonder a common refrain from my father throughout the week was, "You're weird, Karen -- but we like you anyway." Heh.

Two days 'til my anniversary, woo-hoo! I can't imagine spouse will top himself gift-wise -- but I'm looking forward to his reaction to my gift, and to seeing whether he gets the joke....

UPDATE: He got it. :) The gift in question was the "X2" DVD.

me: D'you know why that was your anniversary gift?
spouse: Uh... because I wanted it?
me: No, I mean, which anniversary is it?
spouse: <pause> <grin> The iron anniversary!

Heh.
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:: Karen | 7:32 PM | | [+] ::
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