Random Ramblings

As promised, I unpacked all my books this morning. I amaze myself that they're all able to fit in two bookshelves. This might be because I didn't actually *bring* all of them, mind you, but we all must make sacrifices. (Or buy new bookshelves.)

I went over to Eric's this afternoon to watch Firefly with him and Jing and to play Chaos Roborally. What's Chaos Roborally, you ask? It's regular Roborally, but with the added choas element of a randomly-programmed robot (today played by Eric's stuffed penguin) as well as a flag positioned on a double-speed conveyer belt that was running around in circles. Fun times, fun times. Also tried some wonderful Haagen Dazs green tea and vanilla ice cream. My two favourite flavours, together at last. Bliss! (I can't actually find it online, otherwise I'd link to it.)

Got home to do some stuff on the computer and then it was time to try... (insert drumroll please)... the latest instalment in Julie's "adventures in cooking" series, crock pot chilli! Surprisingly, it actually came out really good. (Marc would say it's impossible to mess up chilli. How little he knows me.) This might be a recipe we'll try again at some point. For now, after eating our fill, we've still got enough for at least 5 small tupperwares (two ladle-fulls each, which is a Marc-sized serving and maybe one-and-a-half Julie-sized servings). So, success! Yay!

In other productive news, I did some brainstorming with my GM from Toronto and hopefully will have a new story percolating over the next few days, helped Marc hang some pictures (honestly, he did most of the work, but it looks really awesome), and finalized the spell list for my new D&D character. So there you go. We've all got our priorities.

Now time for shower and sleeping. G'night, all.

For those who have been following along, "I kill it and takes its treasure" was the name I gave to a D&D game I started playing in Toronto back when I was doing my M.A., early in 2006. The game has been running more-or-less continuously since then, and even I've been playing along over MSN Messenger, doing side-plots with the GM. Saturday marked the very last session of the main game, though there may yet be a few epilogue one-shots or a spin-off game. But to all intents and purposes, the game is now over.

It's been a wild ride, kiddos. I've written many stories about this game, to the tune of 52,000 words, about 23,000 of them in the last month and a half, and that's not counting the session write-ups, which probably account for another 36,000 words. Speaking of session write-ups, here's the one for the final session (warning: about 3,000 words).

( I kill it and take its treasure: the final session )

A fun day today. Started off by window-shopping at Fabricville with Mom, who (like I said yesterday) has agreed to make some garb for me. The downside of all this is that fabric is much more expensive than I remember it being, and the patterns I've seen so far use almost twice what I'm used to. (All my tunics so far use a variant of the St. Louis shirt, which wastes no fabric except the inside of the neck hole.) I really have no desire to pay $50 for a single tunic (ie: 5 yards of linen at $10 a yard). I might need to rethink this plan. On the upside, I'm apparently on John McGuire's "to make garb for" list, which makes me very happy indeed.

Thence off to Eric's to watch some B5 (midway through season 4, now) and conquer some pixels. Well, specifically he and Jing conquered pixels, I just took over a conveniently uninhabited continent. I'm so very addicted to Civ. Ian joined us later in the evening and we talked about everything from religion to comic books. Then Jing very kindly drove me home, and we didn't even get lost. Yay!

Upon returning home, my muse was struck by an offhand request from my GM from Toronto, to write a story about what my character's been doing after the session I was at two weeks ago. Understand that even though I'm no longer in Toronto, I've been staying current with the game and roleplaying via MSN with my GM. So tonight I wrote up a 1,300 word story about the further adventures of Corrigan, the second I've written this week. I like it when my muse is happy with me.

Tomorrow I've got brunch at Warren's followed by dinner with my Edmontonian aunt (and other family). And I'm sure other stuff will fill up the rest of the day. It always done. Now, though, it's time for bed. G'night!

1. It turns out that the D&D game I was playing when I was doing my M.A. in Toronto two years ago is apparently still running. Marc and I made a cameo appearance last December, and I'd had updates until last February. But it looks like I'm just 7 months out of the loop, because it's still (apparently) going strong. Now I just need to conspire to get them all to move to Montreal...

2. I've decided it might be time to buy some more teas. Using my notes from a tea-tasting last year, I'll check which of my favourites are currently stocked by Camellia Sinensis and how much they cost. Actually, it might not be a bad plan just to write down everything, because then I can have a cheat-sheet when I go out for tea.

Okay, not the most stunning morning realizations, but they bring me joy. So does the cooler weather. Yay, temperatures less than 30 degrees!

Yesterday morning was spent lazily. I actually got enough sleep, which was a nice change for this weekend.

At some point in the morning, Ian and I determined that he should go home by train in the afternoon, because nothing was keeping him in Toronto. So, a quick breakfast with Andrew, Kim, and Ian later, and Andrew drove Ian to the train station, and I drove to downtown Toronto to meet up with my D&D group. What I thought was supposed to be a 20-minute drive turned out to be 45 minutes. I was unimpressed.

Anyway. Gaming started around 3 pm and went until about 2:30 am. It was a fun game, including the death of all the major antagonists and my character being captured by a Daemon. It was fun, probably the highlight of my weekend. But, in the end, I only got to bed at 3:30 am, and was awakened by Andrew four hours later.

Now I'm looking at the traffic report. Just east of Toronto, on the Eastbound 401, there has been an accident and the entire highway is closed, both express and collector lanes. That's about 8 lanes of traffic not moving at all. I have no idea how far it's backed up. That means, therefore, that there's no way I'm getting out of Toronto until that's cleared up. Le sigh. At least I'll get some lesson planning done, I suppose. But this is truly frustrating.

Okay. Time to get ready. TTFN.

Edited, 8:30 am: And now I'm watching stand-up comics on TV. Yay.

Okay, so I believe I mentioned that there would be songs coming out of last night's sesison, and indeed there are. Two of them, to be precise. In consequence of the long hours of song-writing, I have *not* written a general, prose summary of the session. I may one day, but then again, I may not. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I give you the two write-ups, in verse format:

( The Ballad of the Battle Beneath the Earth -- a longish (300-line) poem chronicling the final battle between Glothram Athelstar, paladin of Tyr, and Ideld the Deathless. )

( Scourge of the Company -- a much shorter (3 verses + chorus) and lighthearted piece, designed to discredit and blacklist a certain pirate captain who slighted Corrigan. )

So that's it for now. Please let me know what you think if you read through them. I spent a lot of time on these and would like to know that someone's actually reading them.

Yesterday night was my final session in Andrew's D&D game. It went very late (as I believe I mentioned), but it was very intense. I'd love to have written this in more elegant prose, but it was all I could do to just get it written. Be warned: 6700 words!

( Part 1: Glothram and Seb )

( Part 2: Ivellios and Corrigan )

( Part 3: The party reunited )

Right. So that's probably going to be my last write-up for a while. I'll be keeping in touch with the game via email, from afar as Corrigan is now afar, but I doubt I'll post much more here. So... that's it for now. Thanks for reading.

The bad news: The Red Tea Box, a place I've been trying to get to all semester, is closed on Tuesdays. I'd been planning on spending a relaxing afternoon there drinking tea, only to find it closed. What kind a business closes on Tuesdays?!? Instead, I had tea at Second Cup and read until page 215 of Game of Thrones. It's lovely, by the way. I truly missed fantasy / sci-fi reading.

The good news: D&D tonight was absolutley awesome. It started slow, but from 9 pm onwards it was wonderfully intense. Write-up will come tomorrow, probably. We left on a massive cliff-hanger, so we're playing again on Saturday to finally determine what happens to my character. (And everyone else, for that matter.)

I will be writing the PhD Latin exam in less than 12 hours. I have no hopes of passing, but nothing to lose, either. Good luck to everyone taking it! May the power of George be with you! (Vis Georgi cum vobis sit!)

And now, to bed. G'night all.

Right. So after about an hour in the library doing some basic fact-checking, I went over to Andrew's for some more D&D goodness. I won't do the write-up tonight, because it's late, but I will reveal something I've been saving for about a week and a half. You see, being the party bard, I am exposed to most of the exposition, and most of it comes in the way of songs that my character remembers. Obviously, the GM doesn't write these out in verse form, but merely gives the exposition. But I, being my normal obsessive self, could not let this state of affairs stand! I wound up writing a 13-verse song, "The Lay of Ideld." (Ideld being the main antagonist in the game.) Yes, my name is Julie, and I'm a geek.

So, for those who are interested, the song is behind the lj-cut.

( The Lay of Ideld )

D&D this evening was great, despite only being two players. We worked through most of the back-story to the present game, and then Seb and Corrigan went off to find Myrthas' tower quite the worse for wear. I am far too tired to write a plot summary now, though I hopefully will get a chance to do one tomorrow.

Also, as I turned onto Chestnut coming home about ten minutes ago, I found at least a dozen police cars and ambulances along the street and neighbouring streets. It turns out there was a fire (not just a fire alarm, but a fire) in the building next to mine. It seems it wasn't too bad, and things appeared to be dying down as I got there, but it was exciting and stuff... in a "glad it's not me" kind of way.

Now, sleep. Tomorrow I will get secondary research done, damnit! G'night all.