I fully intended to start this post off by talking about how I usually don’t talk about politics, but then I realized I’d sound like everyone else in the blogosphere recently who has posted about how they usually don’t talk about politics and proceeded to do so.  We’re less than two months away from a Presidential election.  Like it or not, we all talk about politics at one point or another.  The question becomes whether or not we wish to actually have an open and honest debate on the subject or if we’re so mired in our own beliefs that we cannot even hear an opposing view without feeling threatened our taking it personally.

For the record, that’s generally why a lot of folks who decide to post about politics start with “I don’t usually talk about politics.”  It’s a security blanket.  If you attack them for their views they can draw it around themselves and make you look like the bad guy.  “See!  You’re the reason I don’t post about this stuff!”

So yeah, I was gonna start with that.  I was going to use that security blanket.  But I decided not to do so because, frankly, if someone can come up with a rational answer for my questions and concerns I’m all about it.  Explain this shit to me, because right now there’s a whole lot going on out there that just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

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Up until Wednesday, I had never served on a jury before.  I’ve been called once, shortly before Alex was born, but at the time I was working in a strip club and I’m pretty sure I did not match the criteria of “upright citizen” that they seem to go for in these things.  Twelve years and a fairly major shift in pay grade seems to have changed that, though.

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So now that the month of vacations is over and I’m re-establishing a somewhat normal pattern around the house I decided to be Mr. Productive today and get some stuff done around the house.  Well, that was my intention at the beginning of the day.  I ended up being delayed in the morning by several hours due to the fact that there was yet another scammer trying to get our Member account information this morning.  It’s the second one in a week!  Last week it was a pretty elaborate phishing scam, but this week it was automated calls that were asking folks to call another number and enter their credit card information!   I had originally intended to hit Home Depot early this morning, but I didn’t get out of the house until around 12:30 becuase I was was waiting for official word on what we should post on the web site.

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Well, the month of August has finally come and gone.  Convergence 14 is done.  Gen Con is done.  Dragon*Con is done.  I’ve blown through the large majority of my vacation hours and maxed out several credit cards.

Was it worth it?

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So the first two days of Gen Con are under our belts.  Alex and I started out every early Thursday morning playing a game called “Welcome to the Hotel California” using a new (and as of yet unpublished) system called Endless Terrors.  Alex enjoyed it, and while I have to admit that the idea for the adventure we went on was pretty decent the game itself wasn’t all that grand.  The pre-generated characters were a “who’s who” of pop culture figures that the players had to choose from.  Our group, for example, consisted of Peter Vincent from Fright Night, Angel from Buffy/Angel, Anita Blake, Ash from the Evil Dead series, Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China, Oz from Buffy, and some guy from Supernatural.  I guess they were shooting for some kind of Modern League of Extraordinary Gentlemen type of deal, but the premise of the game is that the player characters are investigators for an…insurance company.  That’s a totally viable setting, I’m sure, but not when you’re dealing with that type of cast.  Playing that game did give me the inspriation to maybe purchase GURPS and have a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen type of game setting ready to go when my players feel like playing something a bit different.

And for the record, gamer geek boys?  Anita Blake does NOT seduce people, especially strangers and pre-ardeur (which was the description they gave for her powers on the characters sheet).  It’s those squicky kinda things that give us all a bad name, fellas (and yes, it was a dude playing Anita Blake).

Since then things have started going at a pretty breakneck pace.  I actually started this post on Friday morning but didn’t get to finish it, and we really need to get out the door soon.   So a quick bulleted list of highlights –

• Games purchased – Desolation, Munchkin Booty, Settlers of Catan (with the 5-6 player expansion), Munchkin expansions 2-6, Zombie Fluxx
• Played in the Munchkin tournament.  Got our asses handed to us.
• Hooked up with Random and had a grand time walking around with her.
• Met Drew yesterday and made dinner plans with him for tonight.
• Video Games Live was absolutely amazing, and made me realize yet again how much music touches me.  Got misty eyed at several points in the show.
• Late night card gaming with Xany.  Mad Scientist University is too silly.

Ok, that’s pretty much all the time I’ve got to write at the moment.  We have a Paranoia game in 90 minutes and Alex is still sleeping.

I’m having a “fat” morning.  You know the type, right?  Where you realize you’ve eaten a bunch of crap in the last few days and you know for a fact that you’ve put on some weight?  Yeah, one of those mornings.  I haven’t worked out in about a week and I’ve been (and will be for the next three days) eating lots of restaurant food.  Coupled with the lower back numbness and stiffness I’ve been dealing with, and I really don’t feel like someone who regularly works out for 30 to 60 minutes a day.

Which is kind of a pisser, yo.  You’d think that after nearly two years of pretty consistent exercise I could maybe wake up in the morning without being stiff.

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When we last left our hero he was heading off to Tampa with his lovely other half to attend the Wake (a lunch at the Tampa Bay Brewing Company that was part of the events surrounding Convergence 14 here in Tampa).

Caught up with me?  Good.

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So I haven’t made a post of any kind in weeks.  Funny, that.  This was going to be my new, deep blog off of Live Journal where I posted more regularly and made an effort to put out meaningful content.  Instead I let it go silent for weeks on end.

I suppose I just don’t feel as though I’ve had anything really interesting to say.  As of this writing it is 6:20 AM on Sunday morning, and the house is relatively quiet.  I figure I’ll just start writing stuff down as it occurs to me and when I’ve decided that there is enough I’ll hit the post button.  Fair enough?

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At midnight this morning, Cryptic Studios finally unveiled that their next project was going to be the resurrected Star Trek Online MMORPG.  If you’ve been paying attention at all to the buzz in the last few months this news really did not come as much of a shock, but it was really nice to see it finally made official and see some actual renderings from the game.  The forums there are already buzzing with activity, and despite the fact that the game is not even in Alpha yet there are already folks on their forums recruiting for alliances.

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I really try not to make too much of a habit of talking about where I work here in the old blog.  As a general rule it’s really not a good idea, because once you’ve associated your job with your online presence you kind of run the risk of getting in trouble at said job if something about your online presence irks a fellow employee or customer.

Of course, the easy solution to that is never doing anything online that would get you in trouble with your job.  With as connected as things are getting these days it’s a really good habit to get in to anyway.  More and more companies are looking at places like MySpace to see if you have any half-naked pictures of yourself doing questionable things with farm animals before they hire you, so it’s really not a good idea to have that stuff out there to begin with.

And really, what did that chicken ever do to you anyway?

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