A Whole Week

I know, I've been very bad. A whole week has gone by without and update. Heck, Mom even emailed me and asked what was up. The reason is actually pretty lame and I bet you'd never guess. Yep, work.

It just so happens that in the course of about a month I have three fairly major products in development or due. This week I wrapped up one of them, am mid-way through another, and started another, plus we had the quarterly company meeting with the big-wigs from Back East (which I had to sit in on because my boss was out of town (yep, eight full hours of meeting)), and we had our annual distributor open house, so I also had to do some things for that. And really, that was about all I did all week.

Okay, not entirely true. Tuesday I ran the next session of the World's Largest Dungeon. The players even managed to have a really big, impressive fight that nearly wiped a handful of them out in fairly short order. This, of course, being the week that Jim was out of town -- Jim's the one always pushing for big combats with lots of death.

Speaking of which, I have a bone to pick with the World's Largest Dungeon; bad editing. Seriously bad editing. The reason this week was a big fight and the last time I ran wasn't, was because the editors missed the fact that the room (E44) wasn't labeled on the map. Very, very bad and it had a large impact on the game. Regardless, I did a bit of juggling and got it to work as well as possible, but a word to DMs out there: look for E44 and mark where it is on the map. It's important.

Thursday I went to the regular game and we split into two groups; one playing The Shadow of Yesterday, by former Thursday gamer Clinton R. Nixon and the other group playing Unknown Armies (run by me). I'm really looking forward to running the game, but I'm a bit fearful, too. I have a hard time running "realistic" or "grim and gritty" games. Also, this game has a lot of room for horror and I'm having a hard time coming up with horrific things that aren't just visceral blood-and-guts-style horror. I prefer suspense, fear of the unknown, and creepy horror for this game. I'm going to have to put some thought into it this week before the game to come up with some really good ideas. I have the broad strokes of the story, but the detail is what will make it really work.

Shane's cousin (who lives in London, but has taken eight months off work (nice, eh?) to travel) came down from skiing at Whistler to spend the weekend in Seattle. We picked up Shana and went to the B&O (yes, this is the third week in a row we've been there) where we were met by Kian and Ariel. We had a good time, but I was completely exhausted after my work week. I could have gone to bed at nine o'clock and been happy. And for me, that's saying something. Oh, I stopped by the nearby Half-Price Books and picked up a copy or Blankets. Good stuff.

Saturday was the usual, plus I met Shane, Cathy, and Leslie (the cousin) for dinner at Cedar's and then we all met up with Seth to watch Sideways at the Seven Gables Theatre. It was my first time there and I liked it. The movie was very good. I may write more about it later, but I'm too tired to be intelligent about it now.

Sunday I dove into the editing assignment I've only nibbled around the edges of so far. I made it a good number of pages in with only a few hours of work, so I'm feeling pretty good about it. I'm very happy with the style, quality, and consistency of the writing. That's always a good thing.

Sunday evening I went to work, but didn't end up getting more than about a half-hour's worth of work done before taking care of some errands and starting a game of City of Heroes. Initially it looked like a bad night for gaming, but it turned out very well and I managed to get six levels for one character and three for another -- which ultimately was a very efficient use of my time. I'm happy with it.

Okay, I'm going to go relax a bit and then get to bed. I will endeavor to update more frequently this week. I swear.