photo saturday: dark skies

So...

It's been a hot minute since I've been following a recipe and screwed it up to the point of complete failure. The last one I can think of was when I tried a different bread recipe and put one and a half tablespoons of salt in instead of teaspoons. But at least that was understandable at the time because I only had half a functional face... so I was a little distracted.

But back to the current fuckup.

I attempted to make the chili recipe from the DnD cookbook. I say attempted because it was a disaster from start to finish. Part of the problem was also that I was making an additional one third to the recipe, so there was mental maths. But I had the same tablespoons for teaspoon problem as the above. I put far too many kidney beans, or alternatively the recipe just has too many kidney beans in it. And I put additional veggies in... and too much stock. So at the end it was both too sloppy, too beany and just tasted off.

In short, a disaster. And an inedible disaster at that.

So fuck that recipe. That's being consigned to the void until the heat death of the universe.

It also meant I had to improvise a menu for the rest of the week based on things I happened to have in the house, since I hadn't planned for anything other than chili for the week generally.

I survived.

It did give me a little bit of a sad for the first part of the week, exacerbated by local news of additional (admittedly minor) restrictions and whatnot.

Moving on.

We're back to actual photos this week... with dark skies and what not, because the weather right now.

Thursday DnD was moved to Wednesday this week for reasons... and we had a character death. I mean, a little like my cooking disaster this week, it was a collection of individual mistakes, so while there's not blame to be spread, there is definitely character guilt to share around, so that'll be interesting for future games, especially since I'm running the following adventure.

*evil maniacal laughter*

Ahem... anyway. It was a good game, my character was, as the youths say, shooketh... it's going to have repercussions for future games... and, you know CHARACTER DRAMA. So there's that.

Being the start of the month, Thursday was Cut Your Own Hair day again... and while it's very weird, I guess it also makes sense, that cutting all my hair off when it was super long was actually WAY easier than trimming it back from about an inch to half an inch or whatever it is now... some variation on a theme thereof anyway.

Friday was firstly Chiro Day... and the receptionist scared me when she turned around to reveal her facemask with a pair of big red embroidered lips on it... I wasn't expecting it and threw me off so much I misspelt my own first name... so there's that. But otherwise I got all my spine bits adjusted as appropriate.

For reasons I don't completely understand, mixing the exact same (for all intends and purposes) ingredients together on the regular results in vastly different bread from week to week. This week was quite a small loaf relatively speaking, but pleasant enough.

And our Friday night DnD game went very well. We fought some beasties, didn't get eaten by yetis and my character got to tell a story I didn't think she was going to be able to tell either at all or not for a while... so that's always nice.

Today was... m'eh. But acceptable m'eh. We did the supermarket, I'm abandoning recipes this week and making my own soup, because fuck playing by other people's rules in a food preparation context.

Then we came back here and because going anywhere is too much of a pain in the ass right now, we didn't and just did the YubTubs until Ma toddled off home.

So there's that.

Current mood:

photo saturday: holiday trash

Something... out of the ordinary for today's post... it's not photos I've taken, it's not DnD Character Colouring Book... instead, it's the Holiday Movie Poster Generator by Doll Divine and Shidabeeda (also available in Non-Binary flavoured).

I'm not sure I would really survive the cringe factor from watching many actual Hallmark/Netflix or similar holiday movies, they are interesting to have on in the background while you're doing Christmas related things, but as a ridiculous artefact of pop culture and as something I will happily watch other people review and make fun of, I'm totally here for.

And they're so damn formulaic that this generator is both pitch perfect and a ton of fun to play with (especially the text part). These are just some of my favourites (I made entirely too many)... Mia, Grace, Rebecca and Valentina... and their unnamed but hunky love interests. Well, except Embracing Christmas... that dude is totally either hot young Santa or Santa's hot young son. So, you know, Claus.

I also only broke the cardinal "the couple must be dressed contrastingly in red and green" once. But she's also wearing both green and red, so that counts.

Moving on...

This week was... the week before the week before Christmas. Which I realise is self evident, but also an accurate description.

Monday I finally printed Ma's calendar. But Wednesday was when things really kicked off... starting with a morning trip to Officeworks to drop off the calendar for binding and whatnot. Then Wednesday night we finished up the DnD game from last week... only four of the six people who started playing it bothered to show up. Which was fine, except that our cleric wasn't there and we were fighting literally ALL the zombies.

Grrr.

Everyone survived and it was fine... and I liked the way the adventure turned out... one of the more interesting moral decisions. Which in fairness, while these adventures haven't always been superb, they have had some interesting moral choices. Which I like.

Anyway... on Thursday I went to pick up the finished calendar. And we can just insert my usual rant about Officeworks and their printing/binding section at this time of year. They had enough staff this year, that wasn't the problem. What they still didn't have was a good system for organising those staff so that people who were just picking up items or dropping off jobs to pick up later didn't have to stand in the line forever. By forever, I mean somewhere less then 15-20 minutes... maybe... I wasn't really paying attention, but it felt like a long time. And longer than it needed to be.

And no screw ups with the finished product this year, which was nice. Also, no printer fuck ups on my end when I was printing it out, honestly, so that's cause for limited celebration.

From there I went up the hill to see Tink for my... fourth/fifth(?) haircut this year. Which is definitely a thing when generally I have about 12. But it has given me a chance to grow out my hair in ways I wouldn't have done otherwise, and I'm pretty pleased with the general result.

Thursday night I made Rocky Road, since we're not doing other goodies, and that was a production. I used my giant/deep non stick cooking tray, and dumped what was basically two whole batches worth into one. It came out pretty damn nice honestly. And when I sliced it up later I ended up with big square pieces.

Then Friday I had my chiro appointment... which also meant public transport... both of which meant wearing a mask (because that's what they asked for at the chiro). I also stopped into Greenlight Comics for the first time (I think) since the middle of March. I only spent as long in there as it took to find and pay for the latest DnD book (my Christmas present from Ma), before heading out again.

And then it was Friday night DnD. I had made dried apple and cinnamon bread... the apple always swells up way more than I think it should/is going to and I needed to put in about four times the cinnamon. But otherwise it was good.

Friday night however is a story. Not a fall down, go boom story like last week... but definitely a story.

I've mentioned before that there is actual scientific research out there that says that your brain can't tell the difference between real actual emotions and "graph paper emotions" to steal a concept, if not a term, from Critical Role. Things that happen at a role play game table. At least in the moment. So when you feel something, you feel it.

In our Friday night game, my character, Nightingale, has been in love with one of the other characters for probably a couple of months in-game, but almost a year real time I think. And while the DM knows and Fluffy, the third player, knows, I never told mentioned it to the player in question. It wasn't like it was a kind of game where we're going to get deep in the romance weeds, so there wasn't any point. I also wondered how long I could play her as someone in love with his character and him not be aware.

Because as far as my girl was concerned, it was unrequited love. For a whole host of reasons, but, you know, an interesting dynamic to play.

But we found the MacGuffin of the campaign this week. Well, we found it last week, but we needed to jump through a bunch of hoops to get our hands on it. And the MacGuffin *spoilers* turns the character who takes it into an angel, meaning they'll all powerful and ass-kicky for the final fight, but when the game is over, they go off to do angel things.

I mean, hello, welcome to DnD, we have cookies, you can dump your coat on the bed.

We knew what the MacGuffin did (in broad strokes anyway), we knew that his character was being moved in the direction of the sword by his deity, I knew the player probably wanted to take it (it's a pretty cool story arc, honestly... and he already had to give up one major item earlier in the game). But it wasn't our only option. I also knew that him taking it was something my character didn't want. She wanted to be selfish, she wanted him to stay, to return with her when all of this is over and maybe... I dunno, build a life together. Or at least have a shot at it.

After a very long and very tense combat... and I mean very long... normally we'd wrap up by midnight, especially if we had a good stopping point (which we did), but the DM just pushed on through. Which I was happy about, although it seemed weird. But there are moments that happen just the way that they are supposed to, and this was one of those.

We fought the bad guys, the narrative "cut scene" happened on cue (which I suspected it might, what with, you know, understanding how stories work... both as a character and as a player), and we find ourselves standing there with the MacGuffin. And a decision has to be made.

Fluffy makes his case for why he could take the MacGuffin and I sat silently,arms crossed. My girl doesn't sit silently all that often, so clearly something was up.

I don't remember all the details or some of the timing, but he said her name and I told him that he didn't need to take it, but that I'd support whatever his choice was. And he reached out and cupped the side of her face (and given that he's 7 foot something and she's 5 foot nothing, basically he palmed her head like a little basketball. She then laid her tiny hand on the back of his giant mitt.

And she told him she loved him. I didn't mean her to, it just came out... and I'd played that moment through in my head more than a few times, and honestly, every single thought and plan left my brain. I thought he hadn't heard me, but he had, and told her he loved her back (squee!), but by this point he was getting glassy eyed and I was DEFINITELY glassy eyed... and I knew... I knew.

I knew he was going to leave her.

And while still cupping her face, he reached out and took the sword. Cue the heavenly choir and the big fluffy angel wings. And we were all in tears. We called it a game there, because, honestly, it was past 1am anyway, and none of us could have kept going. Because after the adrenaline rush comes the crash, and we all ended up shaking and cold. You know, shock.

Over a make pretend graph paper game. The best fucking game.

It was also so weird that one of their cats reacted to the mood in the room during the emotional drama. Clearly they were picking up what we were putting down (or, you know, it was after 1am and we were "in their space"), but it was super weird.

And afterwards, once we stopped the game there was much real people hugging and saying "fuck" and "oh no" and other such things, but also a definite sense of excitement. Both for what had just happened, and how good it was, but also for what is to come. It's tragic as fuck, but it's a great story arc, for both of our characters. For all of our characters really.

It also means I've made some choices about her future path, which is exciting all on it's own, because it's not a path I saw coming, and I love story-based character decisions. And now we get to kick butt with an angel. So that's a thing that's definitely happening.

For the record, it was just after 2am when I got home. Definitely our latest session to date.

And then I was up about four and a half hours later and headed out to the supermarket on my own, since Ma was getting her hair did.

Shop, shop, shop... home, home, home... unpack, unpack, unpack.

Basically I decided that I'm having pizza all week. I mean, home-made pizza, which I do a very good job at if I do say so myself, but I honestly couldn't be bothered coming up with other options in the lead up to Christmas. Because it's four days, one of which I traditionally have pizza on anyway, one of which I'll be out at DnD, one of which I will have been out all day playing board games and eating ham hearts. And then there's Monday.

So I got home by about 8:30, Ma arrived just after 10, and we didn't do much of anything, because, as previously stated, weekend before Christmas. So she hung out until noon, and then headed home.

There we go.

Current mood:

character saturday: fantasy fashion designer

This week's DnD Character Colouring Book is one I wouldn't perhaps normally do... in that it's OPCs... or Other People's Characters. But in the case of both of these, I had quite a lot of involvement in the design of the HeroForge models, and I'm completely responsible for the colour design for both... so fuck it. Plus I'm probably going to redo the artwork for Lucas because the player came up with a different, more interesting pose... damn him, I mean I also want to colour the new version, but damn him anyway.

But honestly, I love the final results of both of these, especially Lucas, because total Edgelord (which was absolutely the design aesthetic for this whole character), but the hair and beard texture on Torren is probably one of the best I've done, to totally toot my own horn.

And I worked out some new techniques on both of these, especially the subtle chainmail texture on some of Torren's armour. Not to mention the Glomesh style texture on Lucas's tunic because I had to resolve the confusion between his chosen clothing piece and the fact he's wearing scale mail. Plus, it's pretty fucking extra.

EDIT: Okay, so I updated the Lucas art... because I love it even more than the original, which is weird, because it's the exact same colouring, with the exception of the rune glow and the pose... but somehow it's even better...

They're also travelling around with my gigantic Dragonborn boy Marux... and what's amusing is that while he's 7'2", all the party, independently of each other, are quite tall, even the dwarf (relatively speaking), so when I put all of the characters in an image together and scale them accordingly, they all look average height. Because a sense of scale is important. In all things, but definitely in character art.

So this week has been... something.

We started with soup what I made up out of my own head... in that I put some vegetables, some tomato, some chicken, some hope... and it all came out pretty well actually. I mean it was just me mashing together three of four different soup ideas, but it worked out well.

Wednesday's DnD game was pretty decent... playing a high charisma, low wisdom, low intelligence character has it's moments. And there were a couple of moments where I said the right thing at the right time for something that became a plot point later... and I had no idea at the time.

Thursday I had my first haircut in 169 days (nice), or as the "time between" website pointed out, 46.17% of 2020. Yep, from neat and trim to dishevelled hobo in just under half a year. Wow... totally did not realise it was that long. I knew it was a hot minute... but that's longer than expected.

And as I had intended for a while, it wasn't back to the same old same old... we went different. Not dazzling or spectacular, but different. We skipped the colour, but I got her to run a toner through it, so that any of the yellow in the grey or the remaining bleached hair got taken out. I was also very grateful that she offered to trim my beard for me also, since I hadn't bothered to trim it in a little bit... I didn't actually take notice of how long, but let's say more than a month.

Since it didn't require me to do anything other than sit there, I was totally on board, and I left there looking and feeling more like an actual person than I'd done for a while.

So there's that.

Of course that's also the time when Winter properly hit, and the temperature turned definitely bitter cold. Because timing is important.

Friday morning I got a call at about 10:20... and when I picked it up it was my chiro's office, because I hadn't put the appointment in my fucking phone and hence had absolutely forgotten. Goddamn it.

Thankfully she had an appointment in the early afternoon, so I headed into town for that.

Then Friday night was DnD... except it wasn't because one of the party needed a nap, but we didn't know that until we were almost there. So there were board games instead. Well, a board game, Villainous to be precise. And it's pretty damn good.

I feel like it's one of those games that is easy to pick up but difficult to master, and very much depends on which villain you're playing, and the luck of the draw in a lot of ways. But a lot of fun.

And what with standing around like numpties chatting to start, and then more of the same once we were done, it was after midnight before we left and around 1am by the time I got home.

Today was the new average... also it was too fucking cold to go anywhere after the supermarket.

So we did the supermarket thing, I'm making some version of potato, bacon and leek soup (but not chowdah this time), otherwise I didn't buy a hell of a lot of anything. Which might bite me in the butt later in the week. Or not.

So, yeah, then we came back and did the YubTubs thing, then called it a day.

Current mood:

photo saturday: skybabies

So, the end of this week was basically an insanity sandwich. At least relatively speaking.

Firstly, and briefly, the finale of the 12th series of Doctor Who was this week. I haven't particularly commented on either the 11th or 12th series, because, honestly, they've not been particularly inspiring and, on the whole, especially in this most recent series, not that well written overall.

Too many companions, questionable acting choices, stories that feel mostly like a rehash of things that have gone before, and then in the finale, fucking with 57 years of history and continuity in order to... I don't even know, because it certainly didn't have any impact on the finale episode.

So, in the nicest possibly way, Chris Chibnall please leave the show or stop making dumb, pointless choices. And that is definitely the nicest way I could say how I feel about that.

Moving on.

Wednesday was... a shit show. But not necessarily in the worst possible interpretation of that phrase.

To start off with, I ran my first DnD game in maybe nine months, and while the module looked like it should be good, it may have not been the right module for that particular group. Which sometimes happens. I won't say that I didn't enjoy myself, I always do, but it was a little more chaotic than it might otherwise have been.

Follow that up with our Wednesday night group, which is always chaos personified, and more so when there are more than five players, and we had six players. There are certain games where I need to get a little cranky just so people pull their heads in.

There was some interesting roleplay in the session though, which I always appreciate. Even if it almost derailed the entire adventure. But we got there in the end. But it was still that level of chaos again.

Which is incredibly tiring.

Thursday was Haircut Day, so I toddled on up the hill to see Tink. And the result was possibly one of the better hair colours... we went more of an ashy blonde rather than the purple tone, and it came out very nicely.

Then Thursday night was Boardgame Night. And it was quite chill, which was nice. Thankfully the usual source of chaotic energy was absent, and I had a better idea of the game, so I had a good time.

I got home, made the bread dough, then while I was relaxing there was suddenly the sound of water trickling... from I knew not where. Only to discover that weird orange liquid was pouring out of one of the halogen light fixtures in the kitchen. Thankfully it stopped almost as soon as I worked out what was going on, but it was still super weird. So I reported it to the land agent, who said it might be an animal in the roof (that fucking possum again) and we'd keep an eye on it.

Friday there was much tidying of apartment, then baking of bread, then heading out for Friday night DnD. Which wasn't DnD because of DM issues, so instead we just did board games. And it was exactly what we all needed I think.

We also turned a really chill, zen game like Takenoko and really work out some frustrations, as well as getting super Aussie in the process. And there was a moment when I said something "somewhat" inappropriate and we all lost our collective shit and laughed until we cried and had trouble breathing. You know, those moments when things just hit peak funny.

But we all felt better later, so yay.

When I got home at around 1am, I was greeted by a gross orange puddle under the aforementioned light fitting. So whatever was up there, definitely came back for a second go. Buggering fuckery.

And on the Friday before a public holiday, because of course.

So the bucket is firmly in place in the kitchen, and we'll see what happens tonight.

Today was fairly simple overall.

We did the supermarket, came back, futzed around a bit, then headed out to Kmart for some bits and pieces. I picked up a cool denim apron for breadmaking and cooking in general. But mostly for bread, because flour is a bitch.

Then we detoured around to Haighs to make a very early Easter egg purchase, because why the fuck not.

And then we came back here, ordered a pizza and I found some nice British TV shows (Time Team and The Great Pottery Throwdown) on YouTube for Ma while I worked on this post. Once I finish this we're going to head out to this week's Fringe show, and then maybe some dinner.

Current Mood:

photo saturday: horizontal

Well this week was certainly less stressful. Mostly because there were less people involved. Clearly not a coincidence.

I got my Instagram photo calendar from Social Print Studio this week... and then they featured my photo of it on their Instagram story because I used the phrase "so damn girthy" to describe it, which genuinely made me laugh. I mean I always forget how big it is before I get the new one... but then it is 365 (this year 366) pages long.

Wednesday was interesting... my halfling cleric lost her head... literally.

Yep, a combination of pulling a level she shouldn't, a failed roll to half the damage and a high roll from the DM and the blade trap too her head off.

I mean she'll get better, but it was still definitely a moment. I think I've mentioned this before, but it always amuses me that whenever a character death has happened to me, I'm always a lot calmer than everyone else around the table. Maybe it's because I know that it's not really a big deal in Adventures League, there's always a fix... but it is interesting to watch everyone else's reactions.

Thursday was Haircut Day... also known as Small Children Haven't Gone Back To School Yet But Are End Of School Holiday Crazy. Yeah. Some trying moments, and I came home with a number of stickers stuck all the way up the inside of my left arm.

Yeah, I wind them up somewhat, so it's partly my fault... and the end of school holidays is always a disaster.

Otherwise, haircut as usual... we went a little more silver with the colour, which translated to me having purple tips in my hair for two days. Not the worst thing in the world.

Friday's DnD was good... I made bread with those big chocolate buttons, and it was fucking amazing.

Otherwise we kind of put an end to what feels like the "first act" of the story, and we're off to new and exciting places. It's also weird because in game we've only really been together as a group for maybe 5-6 days... but we're kind of sharing things in character like we've been together for the couple of months we've actually been playing.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with that, and it's honestly part of the territory sometimes... but in the context of the story, it's a little weird.

Now we get to pick a magic item... and there are too many interesting choices honestly. So that's going to take a few days of thought.

We also ran "late"... I mean we usually end up at or around midnight, but when Fluffy and I got in the car to leave I was surprised to see it was after 12:30.

Worth it though.

Today wasn't much of anything really to be honest.

We did the supermarket thing... I had half a thought that I might make chilli this week... but then it's also going to get hot towards the end of the week, so maybe not?

Ma brought back my now, admittedly, pink chair covers. Yeah, they're basically pink. Also, having sat in them for several hours this afternoon I can tell you that both the fabric and the design of these is significantly less comfortable than the original chair. That's mostly because of the piping, which is just in places that catches my legs in about five places. Urgh.

So they don't look bad, they fit pretty well, they look cleaner and less worn... but whoever designed these over at IKEA needs a big old slap... or just to be made to sit in them for extended periods of time.

I mean it could be because these covers are made for the newer design of the chair... which doesn't LOOK different... but clearly must be.

Anyway.

After unpacking and whatnot, we headed out to Spotlight... for the 100th time recently... for reasons.

I did pick up some other red dye, I'm not in any great rush to dye it again, but I might get inspired.

Otherwise we pottered around Spotlight for a bit, came back here, faffed around a bit and then Ma headed home.

Current mood:

photo saturday: walls walls walls

Well, fuck this week. Fuck this week right in it's heatwaving, bushfire facehole.

Australia has broken so many "highest temperature" records this week, I think at one point South Australia broke a record that Western Australia had broken earlier that day. And then the temperature went up even higher about two hours later. Le sigh.

Firstly, let's rewind to before the world was mostly made of fire, to last Sunday's Christmas goody making.

It was weird. Let's just get that out there right off the bat. Although mostly it was weird because Ma moved house at the beginning of the year, so this is the first goody making in the new kitchen and new stuff is weird.

It wasn't bad (especially because the temperature was reasonable for the majority of the day). It was just different and weird. And honestly, I made 80% of everything I think.

Not that there was that much of everything, but yeah. I made two lots of Rocky Road. One with the regular Turkish Delight and milk chocolate, the other with orange flavoured TD and dark chocolate (left and right on the top row respectively... I think).

I'm gunna be honest, other than the slight difference in taste between the two kinds of chocolate, these are functionally identical. I can't really tell the difference. But they look pretty, which is good.

Then we (or I, I guess) made the Oreo Peppermint Truffles. I always like these because, due to adding melted chocolate to the mixture they always set really, really well for rolling into balls.

And finally, everybody's (and by everybody, I mostly mean me) favourite, the Peanut Butter Balls. I accidentally made a somewhat better, or at least seemingly less melty version of them this year. I think maybe because I put more icing sugar and peanut butter in and a little less butter. They tasted a little less sweet to me overall, but that could also be me misremembering how sweet they've been in previous years.

The good thing about Ma's new place is that the kitchen and living room are all part of one large space, instead of being two totally separate rooms, so we just watched random, not Christmas, movies while we worked.

I would have preferred to spend the rest of the entire week holed up in my apartment making love to the airconditioner, but it was not to be. Plus I think I would have come down with a nice case of cabin fever. I was already going a little loopy after just Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday was DnD, and we finished off the little trilogy from the past couple of weeks. Which was fun. And the store was adequately airconditioned, so that was fantastic.

Then Thursday was Haircut Day... with added small children. Which is fine, because I get to leave eventually. And Tink got me a baby Groot "planter" (I put it in quotes because while I totally could put something in it, I'm not sure if I want to actually put soil and a plant I need to water in it... maybe a little fake plant or one of those airplants maybe?). I might also talk to one of my friends about giving it a new paintjob, because the "factory paint" isn't particularly detailed. But the sculpt is nice.

Hair, short, blonde bordering on silver/purple.

I also piked out of Board Game Fortnight... mostly because the aircon in my car no longer works and I really, really didn't want to sit in traffic in the heat.

Then Friday was Chiro Day... because I clearly arranged everything to be the week before Christmas WAY before the weather decided to put the setting on "Hell/Heatwave/Firestorm".

I don't know it it was because it was the end of a heatwave, or the Friday before Christmas or what, but I was the only passenger on the bus all the way into town... which was slightly weird. But also airconditioned, and therefore good.

Then after back adjustments and suchlike, it was back home before heading out to Friday Night DnD.

We didn't do a hell of a lot to be honest. I mean, we had fun and my bard got to perform, so that was great. And then because we reached a good stopping point early, we played a bunch of rounds of Love Letter, which was a ton of fun.

I did mean we didn't wrap up until after midnight and I didn't get home until about 1am.

Today was simple. Which is good. Ma was having her hair did, so I was on my own for shopping. And because it was the last Saturday before Christmas I made sure that I was there nice and early when the supermarket opened at 7:30, and was done by the time we would usually be getting to the shops.

And I'm not doing anything involved or strenuous with the rest of the day.

Also, turns out this is my 4000th blog post, who knew!

Current Mood:

photo saturday: lines and shapes

Bah humbug, maybe?

I dunno. I actually don't give a shit about any of the December rigmarole right now. Nothing seems worth bothering with honestly. Not like "life", just like all the festive bullshit. Tomorrow I have to up to Ma's place to put up the Christmas tree. And I couldn't be any less enthused than I currently am.

Like, the enthusiasm gauge is legitimately on 0%... in fact it might actually be dipping below zero at certain points.

Urgh.

Anyway.

Last Saturday, aka the birthday party, was better than anticipated. I mean I knew it wasn't going to be horrendous, but I haven't seen the majority of the former Nut House in... two and a half years. So, weirdness was built in. I did realise while I was on my way there that I'd essentially armoured myself in DnD character jewellery. And dark purple nail polish.

Because sometimes you just have to strap on your mental armour through physical items.

But there's a reason why I enjoyed spending time with those people. And why we got along. And also why, in the case of someone I'd never actually met before that night, we pretty much clicked into a similar mode to how I relate to the rest of them... because she'd been part of the team and was clearly One Of Us.

I told a number of DnD stories to people who were at least polite enough to be vaguely interested, and breadmaking and whatnot... Apologies to anyone I bored the pants off, but really, who cares.

I'd told myself I was only going to stay for a couple of hours and then disappear... that didn't happen, obviously, it was basically midnight by the time I left and I think I was the last of the "former workmates" to leave. It did mean I got to have a nice conversation with the birthday boy out on the porch though, so that was good.

But I had a good time.

Wednesday I went into town for DnD for the first time in three weeks (as in I wasn't in for two... does that make sense?), and it wasn't bad... the adventure was a bit m'eh honestly, but it was decent enough.

It also seems from what I've been told second hand that Wednesday nights won't be happening in December because our DM is often... oh, so many things to say here, none of them complimentary. I'm sure he has reasons... but given that he hasn't bothered to tell me what they are, I will choose to be slightly annoyed by his choices.

Things will be decidedly different when we start the new campaign I'm running. As in, it will actually run on a weekly basis unless I'm somehow incapacitated.

Grrr.

Thursday was Haircut Day. All the usual usualness. A little more "silvery purple" with my hair, but otherwise, nothing dramatic.

For Friday's DnD game I made cheese and chive bread, which was really good. I used more bread than the first time, and I added the chives... although I still need to try a version where I put the cheese in before it proves and see what happens then. Next week I might try a cranberry bread again.

We're also playing on Sunday next week, which isn't a bad option, but it won't be as late a night as we have been doing.

As far as the game is concerned, it was a very chill shopping/exploration/social session. Which I love, obviously. There were a few nice moments too. I mean it makes sense, but this is a very different vibe from other groups... it's quite chill, partly from the DM I think, but also these are mostly quite chill, if very weird, characters.

Speaking of chill... that's probably the way to describe today. I mean it isn't, because I'm not particularly feeling it, but it's as good as anything.

We didn't buy a hell of a lot at the supermarket, because now that we're not in soup weather again, I have no idea how the fuck to actually shop anymore. I either buy way too much stuff which potentially goes to waste like last week, or too little which then runs out, which I think is basically this week's direction.

Then we came back here, faffed around a bit, did a short trip down the road to Haighs so Ma could get something Christmas related for... somebody. Then came back here, watched some stuff on the YouTubes and called it a day.

So, yeah.

That's about it.

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photo saturday: pairs

You know how often times you've come up with a plan, and that plan has a timeline and then the universe just says "hey, have these lemons".

That twisted, strung out metaphor is my week.

There was a single game of DnD this week. The "burnout/obstacle" situation moved itself forward. In truth it was always going to do that, I just didn't know/hadn't been paying attention to the timeline. So instead of getting to tell my players in person, I just sent them a text message. To which I got back very lovely message about how much they like (have liked?) having me as a DM, so that was nice.

Then Wednesday morning our evening DM bailed out due to surprise visiting parents and the having of dinner with same. Which is m'eh, but allowable I guess. It also made me think seriously about buying the table from IKEA... but more on that later.

Wednesday's day game basically took forever to get going (yeah, it's great and all that you want to fold the one new character in organically, but when we start 15 minutes late and then you somehow take about 20 minutes to do that, it's labouring things a little), then turned into one long battle/action scene on board a boat (which was amazing, given that it was a appropriately scaled boat made entirely out of Lego). Which is fine (battle-wise) but also often less fun.

I have half of a plan for how to deal with next week, given we're "supposed" to be in a stalemate with the captain of the boat... I doubt it will work (given the DM), but at least it's half a plan.

And Thursday, there just weren't any games I gave a shit about.

Cycling back to the beginning of the week, I remedied the issue of awful chowder from the previous week, I made my own, very good but entirely self invented chicken and sausage chowder... which was really nice.

Then, on Monday, it sounds so stupid to say, but since I was "suddenly" at a loose end on the first Monday night in a really long while (not counting Christmas and the bout of being sick a while back), I decided that instead of "frittering away" (there's going to be a lot of air quotes today, I can just feel it) the evening, I would actually sit down and give myself the evening. So I watched two movies, both with subtitles so I wouldn't be tempted to end up just "checking something on my laptop". And it was nice. I mean it wasn't anything special, but it was nice.

Tuesday I finally got the correct date and time and went up to see Tink to get my hair did. After an extra long interval since the last haircut, it felt pretty good to get all tidied up.

That was pretty much it for my week. I mean as far as things worth sharing. The week still continued.

Today was... simple?

I decided (pretty much this morning to be honest) to make chilli again this week. I wanted something as tasty as the chowder and as hearty but "opposite"... I dunno... the chowder is all white, chilli is all red... I know what I mean, but words are hard.

I also watched this really random video on YouTube this morning with this random woman making "no knead bread"... I don't know WHY YouTube decided to show it to me... I've never seen one of this woman's videos before, and it's not like I was looking for bread recipes online. But here we are. So I decided, fuck it, and bought some yeast, and I'm going to attempt to make bread some time this week. Because why not.

After shopping, we came back here and Ma wanted some "help" figuring out how to lay out the multicoloured squares she's been crocheting for a blanket (I don't know what or who the blanket is for to be honest... she may have mentioned it, but clearly it's not for me, so I wasn't paying attention), and she also showed me the start she'd made on my infinity scarf... which led to us spending, I dunno, about 45 minutes watching people "knitting in the round", or making tubular knitting with a pair of joined needles.

I'm not going to lie... knitting is one of those things that may as well be magic or rocket science as far as I'm concerned. I can see they doing it, I just don't understand how to make my brain and my fingers talk to each other in a way that results in knitting. And I've tried (not for a long, long time, but I did try) it's just one of those things that I can watch someone do all day long and my brain just does a Homer Simpson and walks backwards into a hedge.

Anyway...

After that, I'd already decided that I needed to get the IKEA table. Even if it only gets used once in a blue moon for now, I'd rather have it and not need it than not have it and wish that I did.

The downside? They only had three of the cheap-ass chairs left (I say cheap-ass, because they are, but I tried them out and they're not horrible, they're just not the most solidly built things ever), so we'll need to go back at the beginning of next month (I think that's what the very big, very pretty but slightly dopey IKEA boy I asked said). Oh, and I have to put them all together, which I don't mind honestly.

So now I own a table... like a proper, more than two person (four person) table. My life is weird.

And that was about it really. We did possibly one of the quickest IKEA walks ever, collected the table (2 parts), collected the chairs (3) and called it a day. Of course, every time I turn around in my lounge room and look towards the "kitchen" end of the room I freak out a little because there are big IKEA boxes (well, one very flat but large box, one very long but skinny box and three flattened chairs in plastic bags, but still) at the other end of the room.

It's definitely going to require some re-jigging of the layout of the room, but that's not a bad thing. And I just need to keep telling myself that about once an hour until after the re-jigging is done.

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photo saturday: opera slices

This week's post is brought to you by the letters "FML" and any number lower than 30.

The numbers, because it would have been nice to have more days with a temperature lower than that... or a night time temperature under 20.

As for FML, partly that's the heat, but we'll get to the rest of it.

I properly felt out of my depth for the first real time running a DnD game this week. I get why... the adventure is much more complex, but I do need to relay to the person who ran it for me and the Thursday numbskulls my admiration for the fact that he did a much better job.

And we have the second half of that adventure still to run this coming Monday. But that should be easier, all things considered.

I pulled the plug this week on the Wednesday night game (just for this week, not forever), partly because the guy who usually acts as taxi wasn't going to be there, which made me taxi-man, plus the heat, plus the fact that our DM had annoyed me earlier in the week.

It turned out to be a good idea anyway, because it allowed us to play for 6 hours at the Wednesday day game. Yeah... it was A LOT. I went toe to toe with the big bad guy and did 100 damage in a single turn, then got my ass handed to me by his minions and the other big bad.

And our DM finally revealed that he'd been sitting on a switcharoo between one of the NPCs and a villain we thought we'd killed already. Damn him... so now we have two different big bads to kill. Not to mention that my character is currently alone, all the party having turned on him thanks to the other big bad's ability to charm creatures.

So they're all planning a wedding, and I spent the last quarter of the game handing from a tree over a mountainous ravine, fully expecting that character to die. I'll be honest with you, I'm kind of disappointed that he didn't. If places had been reversed and I'd been the charmed one, I like to think that I would have just thrown one of them into the ravine without missing a beat.

No idea what the hell I'm going to do next week (although I'm in the process of writing them all letters that the character had already written them... because what use are friends if you can't emotionally manipulate them), but the character is most likely going to try and settle in for a rest, regain his lost health and spells, summon his celestial steed before he tries to head out again. And I also know that there is approximately 0.0000001% chance of me actually being able to do that once we sit back down at the table.

Thursday was a very talky game, but oddly, compared with the very fighty game last week, I lost more health this time. I also got to pretend to be a weird creature (on top of pretending to be my character). So that was a change of pace. Also the second time this particular character has done the body switching thing.

My comments about the group of players from last week remain the same since it was the same group. And will remain the same group for the third part of the trilogy next week.

Otherwise it was too damn hot this week.

Except that this was also Haircut Week and Chiro Week... fortunately not on the hottest of the days.

At least it was a little cooler up in the hills for Haircut Day. It was a very "on rails" visit, we did all the usual things, but Tink Jr was taking up all the air in the room as only a 7 year old can. Not in a bad way especially, but yeah, she is definitely a handful.

Chiro Day came with a side order of "ow my leg"... not from the chiro visit, but my knee had been giving me problems since about Wednesday morning, making life less fun, and my chiro said it was probably caused by my hips being slightly out of whack. Seriously, almost everything that falls apart on me is in some way related to my back.

But because she adjusted both my hips and my knee, it was a little whingy both last night and all day today. I may need to take another visit in the next week or so if it doesn't settle down like I hope it's going to.

Anyway... today wasn't really anything.

Shopping was minimal at best... I just buy too much stuff, don't use it all and it ends up going to waste, so I'm trying to only buy what I need, but I don't know what I need or what I want, so I buy stuff I think is going to be fine, and hope for the best.

Oh and Ma is moving between now and the Fringe. Much as I did in 2016. We definitely know how to move house in my family. Not. Hopefully her move will be much less stressful than my last one (although I do tend to find that moving stress is often inversely proportioned to how eager you are to move out of the old house... as in, from Childers Street to Wellington Square, very eager, from Wellington Square to here, not eager at all).

It also meant we really didn't have anything we wanted to do, and I didn't want to spend the day sitting, because in direct contrast to what you would expect, sitting is worse than walking around when it comes to my knee.

So we went to West Lakes. Which we haven't done in a while... at least since they totally redid the David Jones store down there. And we basically just wandered around the place, poked around in the stores we usually poke around in, and that was about that.

We did stop in the little cafe in David Jones for some lunch though, and that was very pleasant. And much quieter and less urgh than the food court. So we need to remember that in future I think... not just for there, but for DJs in general.

And that's it for the day really.

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photo saturday: minifig-hers

The theme of this year's holiday celebrations is "last minute".

I don't like last minute.

For example, I only got around to making Ma's 2019 calendar a couple of weeks ago, and only printed it and got it appropriately bound this week.

And the printer didn't want to play nicely, which meant that they all printed a little weirdly. Which is on top of the fact that the focus is off enough on the individual minifig faces that I want to entirely remake the calendar.

But anyway...

Oh, because I never got around to posting anything about last Sunday's trip to Ma's place for the annual making of the goodies, here's an image of the end result, followed by the shortest possible synopsis.

• I didn't go down there super early
• we got distracted by more interesting but less productive things
• I managed to completely forget how to make the candy cane truffles (although they worked out fine in the end)
• this year's Turkish Delight was the best for cutting up we've had in a good long time
• I always need to remember to add a little Copha to the chocolate for Rocky Road
• Ma's marble cutting board makes the best photo background
• I came home later than I would have liked, but it didn't really matter that much

I also took some along to two of the three DnD games this week. They were well received, as always. 

This week's DnD was about average. Although on Monday I finally got to fun for the guy who ran for me on Thursday last week, so that was nice. And for the first time in a while, they actually managed to stretch a two hour module out to around 4 hours.

Wednesday's game was less intense than the previous one, a little more annoying at time, and as characters we said goodbye to one of the group who has been around for a while now, but I think the last couple of modules have been a little too much for both character and, to a lesser extent, player.

But we did come up with several of the stupidest plans ever at the end of the game, while resulted in two somewhat competing plans that saw us Looney Tuning it, "cutting" a hole in the floor under the villain, then she and one of the characters plummeted 1000 feet down the side of a mountain (he survived, she didn't). It was supposed to be a big fight that should have taken about an hour... because of ridiculousness we managed to wrap it all up in under 20 minutes even though we were mostly out of health, spells and fucks to give.

Thursday's game my S/M cleric made a friend and found a protege... but also had to both actually heal someone AND do damage to an enemy (I'd made a bet with myself on how long it would take... answer, two and a half games). Granted it was the same person more than once, and he only ever did it when they got knocked out... because of course.

The protege thing snuck up on me... I didn't realise until the player told me at the end of the game... my character would have known... he's more insightful than my dumbass. So we'll see where that goes. Also, as a general rule, never start a staring contest with me.

Thursday was also both Haircut Day and the day I went to get the calendar bound.

Not at the same time though.

It's always good when your friend/hairdresser has tradesmen working in their yard and one of them is very cute and definitely worth perving on.

As far as the haircut is concerned... the same, and also the same silvery dye job we've done a couple of times now.

Tink's older daughter appeared half-way through (not like a magic trick or anything, the older one was on errands with dad, the younger one was at childcare) and made me a very pretty rainbow loomband bracelet (like, it's legitimately really nice looking), then I just hung around with Tink for a while, and ended up discovering how to make a perfect paper aeroplane (by accident... I did what I would normally have done up to a certain point and then accidentally did something different and shazam, perfect plane), drew a drawing and then took myself home (followed by going straight back out to Officeworks to get the calendar done).

I then needed to go and pick up the calendar on Friday afternoon, since it was better if I left it there overnight so that they didn't have to rush it. And the final version looks good, all things considered (focus issues notwithstanding).

Then today wasn't much of anything really.

Ma was getting her hair did this morning, so I did the supermarket run on my own... And I know I say this any time there's a holiday or whatnot, but why do all of you people appear out of the woodwork only at these times? And why does everyone lose their mind buying food at Christmas. I mean, I get it... but even so, fucking calm down and go away.

Anyway... I did my thing, and managed to get home relatively quickly (granted I got there earlier than I might otherwise do when I'm shopping alone). Then hung out and waited for Ma to arrive.

The plan had been to go to the movies. But everything was either not that interesting, on too late (relatively speaking) or too far away.

So we didn't do anything. We sat around and chatted for about quarter of an hour and then she toddled off home.

But a better plan than battling through all of the stupid unorganised Christmas shoppers, even just to go to the movies.

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