1900: Now with more empty promises

First and foremost about this entry, is that it's entry 1900. That's not a lot when you look at the fact I've had this journal going on ten years, but it's still an average of 1.85 posts per day, accounting for leap days and such. Yeah, I was a bit of a post whore when I started this. :) Of course, back then, we didn't have anything like Twitter or Facebook (or even MySpace for that matter), and by the gods, we liked it! :)

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On Wednesday, I started it off by tweeting a pic of the sunrise. I took Walnut Grove straight down to work*, and made it there only a minute late. I found out what cash was, and kept the front end going until we had more help.

Fortunately, there was no conference call, so I had nothing interrupt my attempt to get the schedule done for next week. I still wound up taking until 4pm, but that's with a lunch and a few sundry non-schedule related tasks that I had to complete. All in all, I'm quite pleased with the result. It's amazing what losing a full time cashier will do for you.**

As I got closer and closer to completing the schedule, I began to feel worse and worse. First, the HEAT was on upstairs, which didn't help matters. Second, I felt my mood getting worse and worse as time went on. When I thought about it, I knew that my mood was generally fine, but that something physical was beginning to affect me, and THAT was what bringing me down.

I bailed on going to driver88junkie's, and instead laid down for a nap when I got home. I woke at 7pm, and was soaked in sweat. I felt a little better, but stayed home rather than risk aggravating my apparently fragile health. I sat up until around 9pm, when I laid back down. Interestingly, I picked up where I left off with reading my LJ, and I noticed several things.

• You can see when I began really focusing on WoW, because my posting all but vanished.


• I am a MUCH happier and more stable person now than I was when I first moved back out.


• I read a lot less than I used to (must remedy).


• I got where I would hop on LJ, post that I was alive and that I would post more, only to disappear for another month or two again.


• I would comment about WoW and either say: I was tired of it and that it was time to move on, that I was tempted to come back but that I would "not play as much as I did before." I cycled through this quite a bit.


• I would post that I came back to WoW, and invariably mention how much I'd been playing, despite my assertions (usually 1-2 posts earlier) that I would regulate my playtime.


• I would say that I need to begin writing.

Clearly, I was full of promises which evaporated as soon as I logged off LJ.

I'm not going to sit here and say, "This time will be different." However, reading my LJ entries has convinced me of something that I never paid attention to before: I *do* write my blog for ME, first and foremost. It's helped me remember details about my old Riverdale store, that I had long since forgotten.

The first lesson was that when I moved over to Poplar & Highland, I was NOT READY TO BE A BACKUP. I *loathed* being second man over at Riverdale. I was more concerned in being there for my CSM, who I liked and wanted to help. There was even an incident back in 2005-6 where I had a meltdown, and talked to the manager. She commented that she could tell I was not interested in being a Customer Service Manager. Per my post back then, I agreed with her. For those of you not on social media with me, understand that I am now a Customer Service Manager at one of the busiest stores in the city, and not only do I like it, but I think I do a decent job (want to improve some, but I'm getting there).

That detail alone illustrates how much better my mindset is today versus just four and a half years ago. I'm honestly thunderstruck by how much I've changed emotionally, mentally, and spiritually since then.

...and I'm as pleased as can be. :)

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Today, despite being sick, I'm doing laundry and cleaning my apartment. For some reason, I've always considered my home to be an extension of myself. If it's cluttered and messy, my health will be as well. That's not to say that I expect to get sick if I leave dishes in the sink, but if I'm sick, cleaning my home helps start me down the path of recovering from whatever bug attempted to waylay me. I don't plan on going anywhere, and will be napping at some point today for sure, but my home will be in great shape before the day is out. As friends like to say, it will be Tony Clean™. :)

Now, I must see about unloading the dishwasher. See y'all later!

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* - I'm a dork, because I live just off Walnut Grove, and my store is on Union, which becomes Walnut Grove at Poplar. So, I tend to talk about work being "just down the road". :)

** - For those on my LJ who aren't also on Twitter/Facebook, I had a cashier tell me on Saturday that his schedule "ain't gonna work." He didn't even try to discuss it, so I replied, "It will, for one more week, at least." To which he replied, "We'll see about that." On Sunday, he walked out 2 hours into his shift, and hasn't been back. Thus, he's abandoned his job, and I don't have to worry with fitting him into the schedule anymore. :)

1901: Accomplishing things, but worn out in the process

As the title suggests, I have succeeded in cleaning my apartment up to even my standards. I took a nap once during it, and I've showered since I finished. That said, I'm really tired. I think the time has come to dig out a BluRay or DVD, and settle in to watch some movies/sleep during said movies. "Why," you ask, "did you have to clean your home when you are clearly really sick™?"

It's simple, really. While some may call it pride, I look at my home as the physical reflection of my body/soul. Thus, when the place is dirty when I've gotten sick, I just feel that I will do more for myself by cleaning it too. A more mundane explanation is probably simply that, when my home is dirty, my focus isn't on getting better. So, cleaning gets it off my mind AND makes me feel happier.

As for dinner, I think I may make some chicken noodle soup. Oh! Or maybe tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. That's a terrific combination. Either way, simple, quick, and healthy is the way I'm going tonight.

1902: Gaming -- More of the same?

I get back into updating my LJ on something of a regular basis, and what do I learn? That I'm currently in a "not interested in WoW" mood. Sheesh. I hope that vicious circle is over. I like putting thoughts on "paper." In fact, I might even say that it's infectious. The more I write, even about mundane topics like work and grocery shopping, the more I want to continue writing. On that note, I'm going to tread into familiar territory: gaming.

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I am 36. I have been into games (RPG, CCG, Video, Board, MMO) for pretty much 2/3 of my life. Even when I back off of it, I still find myself wishing... hoping... that I could find a game that I can play, or people with whom I could run a game. Of course, what always seems to happen is that the level of enthusiasm is uneven. I might be excited to play a game, but those I would ask are disinterested or, at best, lukewarm to the idea. Sometimes, I am the one who is cool to the idea.

I realize now that it's no longer enough to say, "we're doing a game," and running with it. My time is more precious, if only to me, and I am not willing to spend such a valuable resource on a game that doesn't hold my interest. That isn't to say that the concept of the game isn't interesting, but I know what I like, and I have to accept that what I like may not always translate well to a tabletop game. In some cases, it's the expectations based on the exposure to the genre.

For instance, in Shadowrun, I love the idea of a decker: a console cowboy, a hacker. Taming the lawless wilds of cyberspace, or blending in and making a name for yourself. However, My experience with the decker is from William Gibson books like Neuromancer and movies like Johnny Mnemonic and Hackers. The big thing there is that the hero knows exactly what to do with their deck to accomplish their goals. I, however, am a more direct person in real life, so the subtlety is lost on me. Thus, while I like cyberpunk and deckers, I cannot play one the way I think I should, because I have different expectations from what is possible in the system.

What, exactly then, am I looking for in a game? What types of games can I be happy with? First, I like a game where law enforcement is more of a hint of a threat than an overt presence. I know this sounds like I'm a loose cannon, but the reality is that I would rather have my character brought to an end by dying in a fight than "the cops arrest you." This tends to be more in the realm of fantasy than sci-fi, in my opinion (though the threat of law enforcement works for something like Firefly, which is predominantly wild west-ish). I'm a hero, dang it. Let me carve justice with the edge of my sword. :)

Another thing that I look for is immersive role-playing. That is, we can forget about the fact that we're playing a game, and just cut loose. The rules are still there for adjudicating conflicts, of course, but aren't so prevalent that they hang like a cloud over all gameplay. A great example of this was the first session of Stephen's first Caeln game. We had the back and forth and interaction so endlessly that night that 7 hours passed by in the blink of an eye.

The final thing is admittedly because I want my cake, and to eat it, too. I like how 3e/PFRPG (3e) has a very modular way of approaching builidng classes, but what happens all too often is that I, at least, get so worked up wanting to see myself with that "level 20 perfect build," that I assembled at level 2, that I get impatient going through the levels to get to it. On the flip side, while rules light systems emphasize my second point (immersive gameplay), I'm left with no mechanical reason to see the character advance. Castles & Crusades (C&C) is a very simple and elegant system. It has the basic d20 resolution mechanic, the six stats, but that's where similarities end.

The question is, how do I utilize the rules light style of Castles & Crusades with the modularity of 3e/PFRPG? At first glance, plugging on Skills or Feats would seem to do it. However, not all of those work for such a simple system or, if they do, they would require some work to get them to be a good fit. Maybe I can streamline 3e, instead? Then again, C&C doesn't really allow multiclassing, so part of THAT issue is removed. With that being the case, perhaps I could instead move over some of the class features instead?

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What did I want out of a game when I was younger? Back in the 2e days, we never really got a game to last very long, but I think we were in it more for the treasure. In 3e, treasure was nice and still desired, but skills, feats, class features, and multiclassing all moved up in importance, because those were a more immediate reward. After all, 3e introduced the concept of "character wealth by level," a chart that would have shot pretty much every single 2e game I ever played in. So, we found value in adding skill ranks, taking new feats, and getting access to new class abilities.

Maybe the next time I assemble a game, I can get the other players to admit exactly what they want out of their game. I want to be a larger-than-life hero, have some choices in character customization, and have it streamlined enough that we don't have to spend an entire gaming session leveling up.

I am ready to grab at least a couple of friends and see about putting together a semi-regular game, because the world needs heroes.

...and my creativity spikes when I'm actually using it. Go figure. :)