Laid Low

Ye gods, am I tired. I've got a depleted mocha cup here at my desk but my mind is still foggy.



We didn't game yesterday. Instead we took some time to go over the campaign, our characters, and basically try to get our shit together so we can continue in a more productive and more enjoyable vein. We spent much of the time sitting around and criticizing one another for how we operate in combat. Mystina (Dogger's monk) thought that Hoda (Chris' fighter) runs off on her horse too often thusly breaking up our combat positions. He also thought that Severus (my cleric) doesn't heal the party enough during melee. Severus' reply was that, in general, everyone is all over the place and he can't catch up to them. Juris (Pete's ranger) and Mystina move a helluva lot faster than Severus so it takes him 2 or 3 actions to get to them. And Juris usually likes to find a spot far away from the action so he can lob arrows at the enemy as he's much more proficient with a bow than a hand weapon. Plus, being a ranger, he goes first and engages the enemy alone. So, by the time the rest of us get there, all hell has broken loose. Ergo we decided to stick together more. Juris can go ahead and reconnoiter but he will come back and report to the rest of the party instead of starting the fight. We must let the enemies come to us, if possible, rather than fighting on their terms.

Another problem was party cohesion outside of combat. We're constantly at each other's throats. While this is actually quite a bit of fun, it has gotten a bit unrealistic. Juris, being of a good alignment, should theoretically be rushing around without the rest of the party more often doing his good things. We've gotta work on finding a good reason to stick together and actually do it.

Still, it was fun to hash stuff out. And Pete brought a pot of venison stew over which was tasty. Miss Regan was a boisterous little baby. While Pete was playing with her, she started to just scream with a really funny bug-eyed look on her face. Must have gotten that from her father.

Although work is blah, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Chuck has been called back to duty. He was let go a week or so ago but apparently he impressed someone so he has returned. We had a short conversation earlier and I made a comment which revealed that I play D&D and he said that he does as well. We gamers are everywhere...look out!

Earlier I was reading about Pat Tillman's death. Talk about sacrifice! He was that football player who left the NFL to join the service. He was killed in Afghanistan - by friendly fire. And now we find out that the Army was apparently trying to cover it up. How terrible! The guy gave up a $3.5 million contract playing football to serve his country and he dies in what was, by the accounts I read, quite horrible. He was wounded by rifle fire before a .50 caliber machine gun finished the job. How about we give thanks to people like Pat who went to Afghanistan (where the Taliban actually were and where the goverment actually harbored them) after giving up a high-paying job and leaving his family. We don't talk much about Afghanistan anymore nor does the news care to either.

I read a good article in Wired last night about folks who are pushing the teaching of "intelligent design" into our public schools. There was an interesting conundrum for the scientific community posited towards the end: Should scientists confront these ID people? For, if they do, they lend the ID forces credibility. And, if they don't, that shit gets into our schools. In referring to one debate hely by a school board in Ohio in which 2 representatives from each side went at it, one scientist said that, "...that a truly representative debate would have had 10,000 pro-evolution scientists against two Discovery (a group that promotes ID) executives." That humored and saddened me at the same time.

Today has been filled with lots of minor things going awry. A program not working here, a login gone astray there. The guy at the credit union only did 1 of the 3 transactions I had on my slip. I completely forgot that the packages I was mailing were going abroad so I spent most of my time just standing there in line staring off into space when I could have been filling out the customs forms. I noticed that one was off to Canada at the last minute and got the form done just as I was called. Then I realized that the other one was going to Scotland so I scrambled to fill out another one. Then the detector klaxon hoolie went off as I was leaving which I found odd as it hadn't activated when I walked into the joint.

Methinks now is the time for me to just put on some Primus and lay low...