Week Ending 9/20

Hey, it's me...

Well, last week I said I was looking forward to better days. I got my wish. I'm still not doing great by any stretch of the imagination, but this week has been OK. 

I spent a chunk of it working on more house rules for my "Age of Sigmar 3.5" game. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but Age of Sigmar is a tabletop miniature wargame that D, J and I play together. We really enjoyed the 3rd edition of the game and were very unhappy with some things about the current, 4th edition (most notably that they deleted my main faction entirely). So, we decided to continue playing 3rd edition. 

Of course, me being me, I couldn't help tweaking the rules a little... or a lot. Basically, I've been incorporating the parts of 4th edition I like into 3rd edition and making a few other tweaks here and there to make our games more fun. Early this week, D decided to try out a new faction he had collected but not played extensively. Turns out, they needed some work. They were the last faction released in 3rd edition and hadn't had time to get their rough edges smoothed off before the new edition came out. So, we did some smoothing of our own. Like I just said, most incorporating 4th ed rules that are obvious improvements. 

This is fun for me. What can I say? I'm a weird guy. 

In other hobby news, I finished posting the chapters for my SimLit story In Moonlight. I'm very pleased with how it came out. I've been struggling a bit with the sequel story, In Starlight, but this morning The Click happened. The Click is that moment when things start falling into place. It usually comes by looking at the various "puzzle pieces" of my ideas in different ways until suddenly two of them Click together. Once that happens, the other pieces start to fall into place. Sometimes a story or idea has multiple Click moments but this was definitely one. I'm thrilled.

Anyway, Click aside, today is a day for resting. So I'm going to and we'll see what next week brings. 

Onward

Week Ending 9/13

 Hey, it's me...

This has been a pretty crappy week, if I'm honest. I've been completely worn out all week. I am very frustrated about that, because I have things I want to do but my body and mind just aren't up to actually doing any of them

The best I can say is that I am now on season 5 of Stargate SG1. While there are still some episodes that have aged like warm milk, on the whole, the show has improved in both storyline, acting and production values from a very shaky start. 

That's about it for me. Like I said, crappy week... but where there are bad days, there will eventually be good days again.

Onward 

Week Ending 9/6

Hey, it's me...

I vacuumed my room! This is huge. I know, to normal people it's like "big deal, you should do that" but no... this is huge. I spent the rest of the day in bed because of it, but I still feel an enormous sense of pride and accomplishment for doing this. The floor was getting pretty grungy. 

You see, J's cat is afraid of the cleaning lady. J's cat is a afraid of everything actually, but she is especially afraid of the cleaning lady. So whenever the cleaning lady comes, J's cat literally hides in my room, putting me between her and the door. I don't have the heart to let the cleaning lady into my room and further traumatize the cat. So, the floor got pretty grungy. 

One day, when the cat was elsewhere, I went for it and I vacuumed. Voila, clean floor and untraumatized cat. 

So, yeah, that's basically what I did this week. :)

Onward

Week Ending 8/30

Hey, it's me...

Well what can I say about this week. Not much. It's been kind of up and down. 

My energy levels have been weird. I think I'm doing OK, and then I crash hard. It's been frustrating. 

I got some more paint on minis. I really need to remember to take some pictures so I can post them, but I'm too tired to do that for this week. 

I've been watching more Stargate SG1. It's continues to be not horrible, but I'm getting a feeling that Stargate Atlantis came by it's war crimes honestly. The good guys aren't exactly ethical exemplars. They also seem to be kind of idiots. Still, watching it passes the time. Kinda.

I am starting to really appreciate how hard "just relax in bed and watch something" actually can be. There comes a certain point where it just don't do it. 

Too tired to actually do anything. Too awake to be satisfied doing nothing. 

Something I've got to work on.

Onward

Week Ending 8/23

Hey, it's me... 

So, this week was J's first week teaching for the semester. That always means figuring out a new routine. Figuring out which days I need leftovers for lunches, which days she has late classes and I need dinner and just generally how to not be a big burden on her as she settles into her new semester. All things being equal, it didn't go badly (touch wood). We're still figuring it out.

I have this goal of being a little more self sufficient, but right now it's still a concept in progress. 

Let's so... otherwise, I finished watching the final season of Stargate Atlantis. It was OK. I was especially amused by the final season clip show episode where the Atlantis team is accused of war crimes by the other people of the galaxy... because F---ing Yes, they have been committing war crimes left, right and center since the start of the shows run. Pretty much everything going on is their fault because they cluelessly blundered into situations they had no understanding of but insisted on acting like they knew best. 

Stargate Atlantis was fun, popcorn sci-fi. It wasn't supposed to have a lesson or a didactic moral goal, like Star Trek. They kind of inadvertently managed to be a cautionary tale about colonialism anyway... but managed to miss it completely. When the life-sucking alien vampire warlord accidentally turns out to be the most heroic figure in the show, you know you've kind of gone off the rails. I still enjoyed it though.

With that fun behind me, I have turned my viewing attention to the original Stargate SG1... which is NOT the movie, Stargate. I keep telling myself that, despite the show kind of pretended it is. That's my first problem with it and why I never watched it's original run. My second problem has been, once I got past the intro episodes that set up the show and it's not-really-connection to the movie, the next two episodes were so painfully misogynistic that I was frankly horrified. It showcases how far we have actually come as a society in the ~30 years since the show originally aired (the MAGA bro backlash notwithstanding). Fortunately, the later episodes seem to have settled down into something watchable. I have hopes.

Well, that's me for the week.

Onward

Week Ending 8/16

Hey, it's me...

Not much to report. Another quiet week spent resting. I've been pretty worn out of late.

We're all fine here, weather wise. No flooding here... at the moment. Touch wood.

On the excitement front, it was the kid's b-day this week. Though, I guess he's not a kid anymore but he's still my kid. So, happy birthday kid. I think he had a nice day. Sadly, I crashed pretty early into it.

That's about it really. I'm going to lay back down now. Rest is good.

Onward

Week Ending 8/9

 Hey, it's me...

So, you know how I spent most of last week resting. Well, guess what. I spent most of this week resting too. I've been pretty seriously worn out. 

Mostly, I've been binge watching season 3 of Stargate Atlantis, which is fun. A couple of take-aways. First, when you have a fan favorite character who was so beloved that they went from bring a short term side character to a main character... don't kill them. Second, the Ancients are dicks. If you know the show, you get it and if you don't it would take too long to explain... but, yeah, the Ancients are dicks.

Managed to get in a one round of the new Warhammer 40K with D. Our second attempt at the new edition. I still don't love it, primarily because you can lose the game before you ever set a single mini on the tabletop. You can literally lose the game at the "buy minis" stage. That's not a good wargame.

Read the latest Eve Dallas paperback. My mom got me into the series. I still love it.

Finally, J and I got around to watching Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender. I've missed Sokka. So, yeah, didn't hate it. A bit too much focus on action and epic battle scenes and not enough focus on the characters, but still I didn't hate it. 

Wow... for a week spent mostly in bed, now it feels like I did a lot. 

That's something to think about. 

Onward