Here we have Brother Ardu... the last of the Icewind Dale Rangers (well, technically there's also an apprentice he went to fetch, but I don't have a model for him yet... well, I do... but not one I'm happy with)... currently south of the Dale and unable to return. Welcome to this week's DnD Character Colouring Book.
He's the answer to two questions... well, maybe three... firstly, how does Leif know how to speak Draconic. That's easy, there's another ranger who speaks it (it may not be how he learned it originally, but it's why he still speaks it), secondly, the Rangers definitely needed a cleric. And lastly... as I end up considering with all my characters, what's Leif's sexual orientation. Or, more accurately, what's his relationship with this particular dragonborn? Turns out, the answer is... it's complicated.
My thinking is that there is definitely a bromance going on... but neither of them have taken it beyond that, because they don't want to ruin what they have, but given that he's been trapped beyond the Dale for a couple of years at this point, who knows what happens when they're reunited.
DM Fluffy made Ardu the brother of one of the NPCs in the game, so now Leif has a greater connection with him... and a potential future brother-in-law. Where neither character really knows what the relationship between dwarf and dragonborn actually is, but also won't talk about it.
Also, this is what happens when Hero Forge drops a whole new outfit... I have to make something using that outfit, even if it's not a character I'm going to be playing... and they dropped a whole new Japanese samurai outfit... which is spectacular, so I had to use it for something.
Moving on...
Firstly, my knee is much better and my bruises are mostly faded. Granted, I also slipped slightly on the bathroom floor on Thursday afternoon and slammed into the door frame... so I have a lovely new bruise.
However, this week has been about getting things organised.
The first couple of days were about sorting out the things that were just sitting on counters or in the wrong spot after opening all the boxes and things last week. Mostly just to have space for the opening of other boxes. So things got put into drawers, boxes for flattened, surfaces were cleared.
I also spent a bit of time when I needed a rest from all the standing, I went through and created all the replacement DVD covers I want to use. I found this site ages ago and thought "that's cool, I should do that some day"... well... some day is... within the next month.
I made a few minor changes to the files... adding the year of the movie on the spine, the category to the cover, that kind of thing. It took a while to get through them all, especially as I had to add the blurbs to the back (which I did the easy way out for, and just looked them up online... the best way I found is to search for the movie title plus "summary".
Also, on Tuesday the landlord came over to fix the dripping tap, replace the shower head and take away the busted light bulb over the stove to get a replacement. With all the plumbing jiggery pokery, he was here for like two hours, but everything got done that needed to be done, and he just needs to get me the replacement bulb.
Sadly, while the shower head itself is a great improvement (in that it's basically just like the one from the old place), the water pressure still isn't great. Workable, but not great.
On Wednesday Mrs (from Friday DnD) sent me an morning message asking if I was up for a visitor... later that morning. I'm counting her as the first official visitor. I mean, technically, if you don't count the moving weekend, that was Fluffy last Friday... but that was more our regularly scheduled thing, same with Ma on both Saturdays, yes, she was the first person here after I was all moved in, but she was coming down regardless.
Anyway, it was nice to see her outside of our regularly scheduled Friday night game... and she brought those little Portuguese custard tarts, and I'm never going to turn away (almost) anybody who shows up at my door bearing those.
After she left, I took a trip down to Officeworks to do some printing of the DVD covers. Which I thought would be final versions, but which turned out to be test prints. Because I'd made one final change and added some additional space around the image, to bring it up to A4 size... forgetting that I would be printing it on a system that doesn't really let you do edge to edge printing, so everything came out a little too small.
Not the worst thing in the world, I printed a few of them, enough to do a proof of concept and to work out that I really, really love the way they look, and pick up a few issues on some of the ones that I had made (like, why did I put Priscilla, Queen of the Desert under Comedy and not Gay... because the gay covers are pink dammit).
So, some minor tweaks and maybe doing some math about what movie sets I can condense down into a single amaray case, and we're good to go.
Also, I finally replaced my very busted remote... the one that I had dropped on the floor a million billion times, including on the Thursday before the move, where it popped completely open and all the bits fell out. I got it back together, but definitely needed a replacement.
On Thursday I did the thing that I've been avoiding for a hot minute... I started unpacking all my tchotchkes... Because those were the three largest boxes left and they were in the way and getting on my nerves. Also, a bunch of the plastic storage bins what were clogging up the wardrobe needed to have stuff pulled out of them, and for a good day there, every surface in my house was coverered with all manner of knick knackage.
The apartment went from "yeah, this is starting to look pretty good, there's some space" to "WHY DO I OWN SO MUCH PLASTIC CRAP" very, very quickly.
I got about half of the way there on Thursday and then had to go out for our first Thursday night DnD game of 2022 (more on that in a second)... well... most of the way honestly. Honestly, Thursday and Friday have kind of merged into one giant day in my brain, so I'm not sure what happened when. But for the most part, I got the "putting out" portion done on Thursday, it was just the "finishing off" and the "putting stuff away" portion that took up a chunk of Friday.
I did get there though.
I'm calling it Version 1.0... there are things that need to be tweaked, a couple of spots that don't quite work yet, a couple of things that need to be changed over for something else, a couple of spaces for additional things if I find stuff while I'm sorting out what stuff can really be moved on for somebody else to love. Because there's a bunch of that stuff still in my house.
But by Friday afternoon, I was pretty much done.
And also exhausted.
Going back to Thursday night DnD... that was a fucking shit show. In a good way. It was nice to see everyone, it doesn't really feel like it's been all that long, because I'm been busy with other stuff, but it's been a while.
The adventure module didn't help... even though our DM of the Week had beefed up the enemies, we kind of circumvented the whole adventure, came at it from the final boss area, threw a summoned devil at him and took him out with relatively little worry. By which I mean, our min-maxer did his thing and murderised him with over 100 points of damage in a single turn. Which is a lot, by the way.
And then we peace-outed... peaced out... whatever... we left before the rest of the enemies got there.
But it was a fun way to spend three or four hours.
Friday night DnD was also pretty good... but in a very different way.
What's interesting is that right now, Leif doesn't really have a horse in the race... as in, he's not here to let the end of the world happen, but most of the rest of the stuff that's going on, he has no clue about.
He has his own reasons for helping the party, but he's coming in later in the game when all of the plot is already in motion, so he's just happy to go along with what is happening.
Which makes a change for how I get to interact with the world right now, and it gives the others a chance to step up a little more. And I'm totally fine with that, it's just a change from before.
Also, we started a dungeon... which is always slightly anxiety enduing, especially when you know that there are things that are going to eat your face off, you just don't know WHERE they are. And of course, we only found said gigantic face eaters right at the end of the session.
So now I have a week to work out how my new character works in combat. Good times, good times.
Speaking of Friday, I haven't completely nailed down the bread. It's like 95% of the way there. But I think, because the oven is smaller (and possibly also because it's electric), it seems to be cooking a little faster. So maybe we'll go with a shorter time next week, just to see how it all shakes out.
Today was... pretty much what I thought it would be.
We did the supermarket thing this morning... I'll say this... I'm looking forward to it being Soup Weather again... because I'm bored with cooking more than once a week... LOL.
After supermarketry, we came back here, I unpacked all the things, and then we headed off the the Land of the Blue and Yellow Meatball... IKEA.
I needed three things at IKEA. A new lamp, an umbrella stand and some sort of clock. It... didn't quite... work out like that. Not entirely.
I mean, I needed a holder for my kitchen roll. And I needed two more of those magazine box things. And I have been thinking about an iPhone stand for the console table behind my chair this week. I really didn't need the sign or the bag or the spatula. But the sign is super fucking cute tho.
I also could probably have lived with the old lamp. But I put another hole in the paper shade this week, because it's hard to get to the powerpoint behind it without moving it.
Rolling back the tape... when I moved into the Wellington Square apartment I was obsessed for... actually quite a while... in getting some sort of umbrella stand... for, you know, the umbrellas.
Fast forward to today... I got an umbrella stand from IKEA that nestles snuggly in behind the front door and holds all of my umbrellys. Also, it was a whole $9. Reduced, I think, because it was white. But I have white walls... so, a white stand makes much more sense. It wasn't what I was originally thinking of, I was thinking more of a big cylinder essentially, but this definitely does the job.
And I put a sword in it. Because of course I did, and why wouldn't you?
I also have use of my cute little red laundry hamper/wheelie bin back, so bonus all around.
Not bad for a grand total of about $80... which I paid for out of my bond refund, because even though they never bothered to reply to the email I sent, I got my entire bond back from the old house, which is good.
Oh, and by the way, have you seen my blue handled scissors? You know, the ones that have the little case that goes over the blades. The ones I used at some point earlier in the week (actually, I don't remember when I used them, I thought it was Wednesday to cut the DVD covers, but I did that with a utility knife). Have you seen them? I have no fucking clue where the hell they've gone. And it's driving me a little nuts.
Like, they can't be that many places. They're sizable scissors and they're bright blue and they have been sitting on the fucking kitchen bench for the majority of the last week.
My fear is that, somehow, I accidently threw them out. That makes no fucking sense. And they'll probably turn up, like... inside some other container or when I move out, they'll be shoved between empty boxes in the wardrobe for some unknown reason. It'll be some completely ridiculous place that makes no fucking sense.
But they're the scissors I use for cutting paper, so I'm kinda bummed that they've gone walkabout.
Anyway... I need to go adjust the angle of the clock I bought so it's not directly reflecting the kitchen window the whole time, and then have some dinner.
Current mood: 
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