::Furlough

The last three weeks have been a voracious gorging in Life for me. A delicious respite from school/work/work/arrrgh. I’ve been grabbing with both hands and pulling fruit from all the trees, taking bites and dropping it for the next, juicier one. Doing things I shouldn’t be doing — spending money again. Doing things I should have been doing long ago.

Of course, the one thing that gets neglected when I’m bounding around in the sunshine like an idiot puppy is the Internet. And thus this place. Then again, I’m fairly certain I don’t have any rabid stalkers cutting themselves in angsty anticipation of my next fascinating entry.

Oh — and if you ARE cutting yourself because I’m not writing… send me naked pictures instead, or money, or something. There are such better ways to stalk.

I attended all four days of GenCon this year, following through on my vow after I couldn’t afford it last year. It certainly helps that it’s here in town — although this nightshift boy getting up at 8am was certainly a shocker.

GenCon is kind of my annual trip to Mecca. I hesitate to give it that kind of religious moniker, but I mean it more in the sense of a pilgrimage to a place where I can be among those who understand and refresh myself in the company of NERDS. Mmmm, nerds. And girls in revealing costumes.

My team won this year’s XCRAWL tournament after two blistering rounds. That was a lot of fun and I met some really good people, including the guy who writes the XCRAWL stuff. I need to write him back. If I ever get free time, he could hook me up to write a d20 dungeon crawl of some kind and actually see publication. Though, as with all things regarding publication, I have permanent and ingrained doubts. So much of it is politics and luck.

I also was drafted as an emergency DM for one of my favorite games, the tournament run of Arcana Evolved. I would have greatly preferred to be a player, but hey? what can you do. At least I got to be in the room. Unfortunately, my players were kind of ‘cold fish’, some old-school guys who just wanted to roll dice and not think too hard. Oh, well. It was still an experience worth having.

Almost not worth mentioning is the bad, bad, bad 7th Sea game I was in. I highly recommend AVOIDING future events by Game Base Seven. I will be.

Last and definitely not least, I got to play Hercules. The Malhavoc booth ran a contest for the PTOLUS book that I had been lusting after but couldn’t possibly afford. Almost 700 pages of colorful goodness, with a price tag of $120. No way!

Until they called my raffle ticket, and I was one of fifteen chosen for the contest. In which we had to hold a copy of the book straight out at chin level with locked elbows. Last man standing keeps his copy.

Of course, I was already half-exhausted and dehydrated — but I *wanted* that book, and I knew the contest was the only way I could get it. Halfway through I was in pain. The last three minutes were agony. I was sore from the waist up for days. But it was worth it.

(And there are embarassing pictures on the Net for you to find, if you look well.)

After GenCon, a week of sun and going to the park every day, lolling about in the shadow of the ruins and slapping at ants that seem to love my sweat.

Interrupted — More soon.