Of blogs, shame and love

Boy… I am the worst blogger ever. I guess I still don’t see my daily life as something anyone would want to read about. Which is too bad, because I always really enjoy going back and reading my own entries. I just need to remember that and set myself a schedule, I suppose. I know it will make me a better writer and probably help me understand the events in my life.

Well, we did it. We got married finally. Amy and I were in Vegas and just decided, what the hell, lets do it and be done with it. We were in Vegas for a concert with some friends who were really excited about the idea of us getting married, so we pulled the trigger. Plus, Amy got to buy a nice new dress. Win-win. We had a great time and it was really a wonderful experience. To get married in such a way that you really forget about everyone else and their concerns and wants and just focus on the two of us. That moment when we were looking at each other and making our bond official was the pinnacle. Everyone else just disappeared and it was just the two of us. It was just our love and devotion to each other. Nothing else mattered.

In other news, we moved into a new place. Still in Sacramento, but we got an apartment right in the middle of the popular part of downtown. It’s a really fun location and a much more interesting place. Plus, we save money on rent and parking. It even has a washer and dryer in the unit! Awesome sauce. The place is pretty old, which is both good and bad. A house from the 20s converted into apartments has it’s troubles. For instance, we are currently working through an issue that has left our washer without hot water. Which is weird because the sink ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL has perfectly fine hot water. Go figure. But, it has beautiful hard wood floors and a private parking lot. I’ll take the trade off. They will fix the water or give us a discount on rent. So, we can deal with that. There is also a disturbing lack of closets. Did people not have clothes in the 20s? I guess they just owned a lot of wardrobes. I’ll have to post some pictures here in a week or two when we get everything setup. Hoping to put the finishing touches on some projects this weekend or next. Well, that’s all for now. Keep up the good fight, Internets.

Gaming…

Lets see… I played some more WoW. Did a random dungeon. Still didn’t have my Microphone working, but we managed. However, I did figure it out shortly after the dungeon was done. A short rant… So, I have this wicked Creative X-fi card that a friend gave me and I love it. It sounds awesome and Windows 7 just worked with it. No tweaking needed. Except the Mic. I’ve fought with it every time I try and use the Mic since installing Windows 7. Every time I gave up in disgust. No posts from people with similar issues, so I had no clue what it was. I checked and rechecked every setting in Windows Sound. The Microphone jack just showed up as empty. I was baffled. So, I dug through every screen in the Creative Tools application and finally found this one that said something about using the in-line jack as a microphone. Bingo. Worked like a charm. Why would you have this option? That seems silly. Plus, why would that be on by default??? Windows 7 detected that I had another Microphone jack on the front of my PC (which I don’t), so I can only guess that creative decided that if I have this other jack, I’d probably want the other one to be used for an input. Fine… What ever. Much aggravation was had, but it’s done now. I still love the sound quality out of the card, so I’ll forgive a thing like that. Ok, so that was that short of a rant. Oh well. You wanted to hear from me, you’ll hear from me!

Re: Gaming

So, after posting about WoW and listening to The Instance podcast, I decided to load it up and give another try. Solo, but still. I hopped on just to see what had changed, and there was quite a bit. Some very cool new dungeons, that my old friends helped me promptly vanquish. Of course, now I have to decide if I want to let it drag me back in. I could see playing a lot with them, but I don’t think Amy is into it. I think she’s just fallen out of love with it. So, this would leave me with only a night or two a week to play. Which is OK. I could still have some fun on those nights. We’ll see what happens.

Gaming

So, gaming of late has been odd for us. We’ve been doing so many non-video game related activities that we really haven’t been able to put much force behind any one game.

We’ve been playing D&D with a new group. I’m actually playing in it. That’s been nice, but I kind of miss DMing. Not enough to start another game. We are already starting another that I will be playing in as well. I’m playing a Cleric right now, decked out to heal and it’s over kill. We have 5-7 players in a given game session and I have yet to run out of healing. I don’t know if it’s the DM’s fault or mine. I really twinked this Cleric to be heal heavy. So, I think I’m going to morph him big time and make a Cleric/Wizard. I’m really interested in how the multiclassing works out. It seems kind of weak at low levels, but it could be pretty cool at higher levels. I either go that way, or I completely re-roll and make a Barbarian to rip shit up. That would be fun too…

On the video game scene, we’ve pretty much quit WoW. We play once a month, maybe. Mostly, we’ve been not playing. Watching more TiVo together and cuddling. That’s always fun. When we do play, it’s been Borderlands or Left 4 Dead 2. Both of which are stellar games. Borderlands is like the ultimate video game for me. First person shooter with RPG elements. It even includes some hot chicks. What more could anyone want!? We also picked up Fable II on the Xbox. I mean, literally ON the Xbox. No disc even. For those interested (Jen and Bobby), you can download the first “Chapter” for free. The game is multi-player, in a way, on the same box. You can play tandem with one person as a “Hero” and the other as their “henchman.” This works out really well for us. It’s a cool story and we both get to participate in it. I also started going through Guitar Hero 3 on Hard. I’m about 2/3rds of the way through and starting to struggle. That game gets DAMNED hard quick…

Well, that’s all for my games wrap up. I’ll try and post again before 2010…

Social Networking

I don’t know why it works the way it does. I guess it escapes me. I love the idea of sharing information with my friends that I rarely see, but I have a hard time putting down anything in words. I always worry that what I have to say is trivial and not interesting to anyone. But when I do have something really important, like asking Amy to marry me, I have a hard time writing to. Maybe I’m just too private of a person to be a social networker. That’s not actually a word, btw. So, this bring up the question for me, what do you want to read? What do you enjoy reading? Are there any posts I have put up here that you really found interesting? Maybe I just need to focus on some part of my life and keep updating about that.

More D&D

So, we took the plunge and joined ANOTHER D&D group through the Internets. I know, it’s a gamble, but it paid off pretty well. The new group is a little bit of a drive, but not that bad. about 20-30 minutes away. The group is quite new to D&D 4th, but I’m OK with that. I get to pay. I built a pretty interesting great spear wielding cleric that can kick out the heals, and do some nice damage from a safe distance. I like him a lot. The DM comes from a more story-teller based background, so he’s all about story and skill checks. I like it. It seemed a bit hoaky at first explanation, but he executed it pretty well. Kind of a murder mystery through D&D. I hope he can pull it off well. So far, not too bad.

D&D and the temple of doom

So, I had a good game of D&D last night. Ran my group through another installment of the Sanctum of Raina (not actual name) and they fared pretty well. Only one near wipe, and that wasn’t heir fault. They triggered an encounter with 6 Clay Scouts in a wide open room. Said meanies throw a mind bolt at range that no only makes it so you can do almost nothing (daze effect), but when the PCs are dazed by the effect, all of the scouts become invisible! A might be over powered if you ask me. I think it might have been OK if there were half as many of them. I’ll remember that next time.

I got to play with some very fun encounter types in this part of the delve, including a very fun room with a pillar trap that would summon skeletons every time you got near a pillar. Even when the skeletons got near them, they summoned more! It was awesome. I think I actually cackled with glee at one point. They ended up killing over 30 skeleton minions before the trap was all said and done. AND I dropped two party members in the fight. I would say that’s a perfect challenge for the party. It never felt like they couldn’t win, but it pushed them to the edge. They also got a boat load of exp for killing so many skeletons. Much fun was had!

And, next week I get to play in a game! Woohoo!!! I can’t wait for that part. I’m planning a wicked little Paladin healer. Should be really fun to be on the other side of the DM shield again. I just pray that this new group is good. They are an unknown quantity in the extreme. Here’s hope they don’t blow donkies!

Primed and ready to go!

So, the other night I finished priming all of my minis. They are now much more chaotic looking, since they are sprayed Chaos Black. Now for the long journey of painting them. I’ll be sure to post pictures of my “test cases” soon. Now I need to find a good color scheme to pull my army together.

Next time I try and photograph black minis, I’ll put them on a background that ISN’T black…

Primed!

Organizing chaos

It took a while, but here is the first milestone for my Chaos Army. I have clipped, glued, and accessorized the horde that will some day soon trample my foes under boot and hoof. Now, I just have to assemble the other 12 warriors, 10 Chosen Warriors and Lord of Chaos. Oh, and then I have to prime them all. Oh yeah, then I need to paint them all meticulously  so they strike fear into the hearts of man… OK. Maybe it won’t be some day soon. But it will happen. Mark my words, it WILL happen! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

My Army of Chaos!!

Plastic Chaos Theory

In response to my last update about paining abilities, I have fallen to the dark side. I bought a 2000 point Warriors of Chaos army. I will post some pictures when I have mustered my nefarious men of war!!! So far, I have clipped and glued 2 regiments or 22 soldiers. This might take a while…

I can’t wait to try out some new techniques I learned in the session. I also signed up for a kind of painting boot-camp they do with one of the Games Workshop professional painters. It’s 6 weeks of Warhammer painting! I can’t wait!