Cut Down

Another good weekend. After a day of sleeping in and running some very light errands on Friday, I spent the late afternoon with Julia, then I headed to Jason and Liz's for some poker. It was a small game (just five of us for most of the evening) and I'm happy to report that I've continued my winning streak to tune of another $10. Which I believe brings my winnings to about $40. Yes, I am rich.

Saturday the 520 bridge was closed, so Julia and I mostly just hung out at my place, read, and watched some T.V. I know we did something else -- maybe even went into the city for some reason -- but I can't remember exactly what right now.

Sunday was a prototypical lazy day made up of a late breakfast, relaxing at Julia's, figuring out her gas fireplace and getting it started, and reading while she trimmed the fur on one of her cats. See, it's a longhair and has trouble with hairballs, so... Yes, I thought it was kind of funny, too, but damn if the cat didn't look oddly cute with it's rough haircut.

Monday I had my review at work; I'm still employed and everything's going very well. We even have some new, cool things to work on -- including a potentially big license that I really have to wrack my brain about this week.

After work I had dinner with Seth and chatted about comics and writing and work and all those other things we talk about -- including how badly we'd both like to see Scott again. It's been way too long, man!

The rest of the evening involved a surprise call from Julia, so I joined her at a local sushi place where I watched as she ate, then we went to my place to watch some of the Deadwood DVD's I borrowed from Jason. Very good stuff so far -- and it's really getting me in the mood to run Deadlands again, which should happen soon!

In an effort to actually follow through on cutting down (hence the title of this post) on my comics (one of the subjects I discussed with Seth and Julia tonight), I made a list of all the comics I would like to keep collecting along with a handful of limited series that I'm currently partway into. Here's the list of ongoing books that I'm keeping:

Invincible
The Walking Dead
Planetary (Very intermittant)
Fables
Albion (Is this still coming out?)
Powers (Although I'm getting a little tired of it.)
Captain America (As long as the quality stays up.)
Marvel Team-Up
Usagi Yojimbo
Astonishing X-Men
Ultimate X-Men (As long as Kirkland's writing.)
New Avengers (May not last much longer on the list.)
Astro City (Also very intermittant.)

I may be forgetting something, but I really don't think I am. The big challenge will be if I can resist checking out James Robinson's run on the upcoming Batman book. It was Batman, right Seth? If I stick to the list above that amounts to about $10 a week on comics.

See you soon!

No Go

I ended up deciding against the poker tournament today for a number of reasons, but mostly because it would have taken the whole day and I really have other things I'd like to do. Of course then I ended up sleeping very late, but I can't feel bad about that because I must have needed it, right?

Plus, it was a little snowy and icey this morning, so the hour-long drive would have been significanly longer considering what traffic is normally like when it's like that out here. So, good choice for me!

So I'm curious if Scott followed the link to the Tomb of Horror that I posted earlier this week. I specifically thought of you when I found it and hoped you'd get a kick out of it.

More soon.

Over Time

I had more than the allowed number of vacation hours left at the end of the year, so I took Thursday and Friday off. I mostly did a lot of catching up on things today; watching a recent Battlestar Galactica, reading, listening to a number of podcasts, and stopping by work to take care of a few things.

Tomorrow I think I'm getting up and going to a nearby casino to play poker. I've never played in a casino, so I'm going to see what the process is like and if I enjoy it. The game tomorrow will be followed by an evening of poker at Jason's. It may be a bit too much poker for me in a single day -- but then again I don't know how long I'll actually be playing once I'm in the tournament tomorrow.

I'd wirte more, but I have to take my girl back to her place now.

More later.

Cool Bits

Thursday I had a nice pizza dinner with Seth, Kevin, and Kim. We hadn't hung out for a while, so it was nice to get together again. As dinner was finishing up Julia called and we met at my place, where we watched some television and relaxed for a bit. That was a nice surprise for both of us because we weren't planning to see each other that night.

Friday after work we pretty much did more of the same, though for the life of me I can't remember exactly what it was. That's very weird. If I remember I'll clue you in.

Saturday we went for a good meal at Lola again. That place is great. Afterwards we met Seth for comics at Zanadu and headed home. As soon as we got back Julia went to her place for the afternoon because we both had things we wanted to take care of. I spent the afternoon working on my outlines and stories for the writing group and Julia read some new books she'd picked up. That evening we got back together, picked up some burgers from Dick's in Wallingford -- it was out of the way, but it was a nice drive -- then finished watching the Battlestar Galactica miniseries. It was good.

Sunday we played poker at a friend's place in the afternoon -- in which we both did pretty damn well, I have to say -- then we decided to go to Half-Price Books to look around and to the B&O for dinner, which was a great choice. Afterwards we drove to Shana's and hung out with her for a while before she ran us on a wild goose chase to find donuts at a mythical Krispy Kreme that she beleived was open 24-hours.

Monday we both had off due to Presidents Day (should that be apostrophe'ed?) so we had some yummy Indian food for lunch, did some shopping around Greenwood and Ballard (I picked up the new Ars Magica book, Covenants, I beleive), then came back to my place so I could read through everything for the writing group while Julia read. Around seven o'clock I met Seth and Jason for the writing group. I'll write more about that later, but it was good.

In addition to all this fun, I also found a couple of things on the Wizards of the Coast site that some of you might enjoy. I don't know how I hadn't heard that these existed sooner, but for your pleasure I present, White Plume Mountain and The Tomb of Horrors, both redone for the new edition. Pretty cool.

More later!

Music, Writing, and More

Via one of the many podcasts I listen to on a regular basis (this one was NPR's Pop Culture podcast) I was clued into Wolfgang's Vault. It includes a fantastic array of older music and memoribilia. Click through the many tabs and pages and you'll find an amazing collection of goodies. On the landing page you'll find a number of streaming concerts that are worth checking out. The collection belonged to concert promoter Bill Graham. He recorded thousands of concerts over the years and now you can listen to a lot of them online. No downloading just yet, but the streaming stuff is still pretty cool.

Seth, Jason, and I have rescheduled the first meeting of our writer's group for Monday. I still have a lot of things to work out for all of my stories, but I'm excited to get something to Seth and Jason to review. I'm sure I'll benefit from whatever input they provide me -- even if they only act as sounding boards for me. Mostly I just need to get my mind into a creative writing space. It hasn't been there for so long that I'm having a hard time changing grears, but I'm definitely headed that way and I'm excited to start working on something (or three) in earnest.

I talked to my mom on Valentine's Day and I was saddened to hear that her good friend JoAnn died last week from cancer. Mom and Dad went to the funeral over the weekend. It's weird for me to know that she's gone, but she was a pretty constant friend to my mom since 1976 (if I'm remembering what Mom said correctly), so I know she had a hard time with it. I just want Mom to know I know how she's feeling.

I have to be to work early tomorrow, so it's time for beddy-bye.

Valentine's Eve

It's the day before Valentine's Day and I have some time to update, so I'm taking advantage of it!

I looked at Nothing Good... yesterday and realized it had been a week since I last updated. That was a little hard to beleive because I felt like I just updated a couple of days ago. That was a very strange feeling. I guess I've been busy. What have I been up to?

Last Tuesday night Seth ran his newDC Heroes game. That went very well. A number of us changed characters from the last time we played. That was definitely a good thing. All the characters (especially mine) was much more of a team player and it looks like we'll have a pretty good game as a result. In addition, Seth changed things slightly so that we're actually recognized as heroes by the police and citizenry. That's definitely a good thing. I'm really looking forward to playing more.

Thursday night Julia and I went with Seth, Shana, Buggy, and Javier to see a show at the Crocodile Cafe in Belltown. It was a show featuring a number of bands doing interpretations of the Magnetic Fields' 1999 three-CD release, 69 Love Songs. It was sold out, packed, and a mite uncomfortable, but the bands were good and we all had a good time -- even though some of us felt a little old and realized that we might be past the whole club scene. (Was I ever into the club scene?)

Friday Julia and I both had off and we had a nice three-day weekend. We didn't make any plans with anyone ahead of time because we wanted to relax and only do what we were both interested in. Plus, this was our Valentine's Weekend so we wanted to have enough time just to appreciate each other. Over the course of the weekend we did some shopping, had some great meals (including another great brunch at Lola), sat around and read, watched some television, went to see The Matador (loud link) and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and had a good time just hanging out and talking. It was a good first Valentine's Day together.

Now I'm sitting down to make some more notes on my story ideas. Jason, Seth, and I rescheduled for Thursday night, so I'd like to have a bit more for them to mull over for me. It's been nice to take a break from these for a while, but I'm really looking forward to working on them again, so I'm going to do that now.

Oh, check out my friend Kian Chai's new Website. It's fantastic!

The Eagle Has Landed

I talked to my little sister Monday night to see if the box of goodies I'd sent to my nephews had arrived. Sure enough, they had and the Batman t-shirt when over big. Brett saw it and told his mom, "Uncle Jon has one just like that!" and immediately put it on. Jess liked the new Bone books and was already reading the next in the series. He's probably read more than I have at this point. Sometime soon I'll dive into the complete collection I have, but until then Jess will have the advantage.

I went to see Capote this evening. I've been wanting to see it since before all the awards hype because Phillip Seymour Hoffman is in it and I think he's one of the greatest actors working today. The movie was good. Disturbing in a couple of ways, actually, but very good. See it if you think you'll like it. It's not a renter, really, so while it's on the big screen is the time to do it.

Otherwise I've been watching episodes of Ben 10 that Kevin TiVo'd for me and working on some characters for Seth's DC game on Tuesday. I have too many options and only one that appears to work well.

Now it's time for some rest. Later.

Final Destination 3...3!?

I sat down in front of the television this evening to see if there was anything on, there wasn't, but I saw an ad for the new movie Final Desination 3. I don't remember Final Destination 2, but really, did we need a third movie in the series? Were the first two that good? Were they even that profitable? It makes me think that some decisionmakers in Hollywood really aren't that "with it". Ah, well, I guess it employed a number of people for a while, so some good came from it.

As for the rest of the weekend, Friday night I played poker in Tacoma at the friend of a friend's. I did really well at the start, but then lost, lost, lost. It was very sad. In addition, Julia had had a particularly bad day and I wasn't there to be a shoulder to cry on, so I felt bad about then when I talked to her about it later. Everything's good now, though.

Saturday, I picked up Julia and we went to get comics, then went to her parents' place for some good snacky food and a couple of hours of playing "42", which is a game that uses dominoes and is (or was) apparently a popular game in Texas (which is where her grandfather brought it from). It was interesting. Ah, I found a Website about "Texas 42", check it out if you're curious.

That night we went to see Katie play at the Showbox down by the Pike Place Market. Unknown to all of us, she was the headlining act. That was good and bad; good because she had a nice ad in the papers a while ago pushing the show, and she got top billing on the kiosk (which was pretty cool to see), but it was bad because she went on at midnight and all the fans of the bands that played earlier in the evening had cleared out by then. Anyway, the show was good and I was happy to see the girls again. We're going to try to get together for a movie night sometime soon.

Sunday was pretty lazy. Julia and I hung out at the bookstore for a while, then picked up a few things for Jen and Hays' Super Bowl party. We showed up a bit late to that, but we had a good time lazing around on the couches with everyone, making inappropriate jokes, and generally not paying too much attention to the game. It was a good time -- and like I said, nice and lazy. After the game I dropped Julia off and came home to do some reading. Now it's time for bed.

Oh, today was my younger sister's youngest son's 5th birthday, so happy birthday to him. I sent him a gift last week (should arrive Monday, if my guess is right). I was quite happy to send him a Batman t-shirt along with a bunch of Bone and Akiko graphic novels for his brothers. They've really enjoyed the first two collections and I found the following four when I was going through my things a while ago.

I have to work on my story outlines for the writing group. We canceled last week due to illness, so I'm sure we'll reschedule for sometime soon. I have to remember to talk to Seth and Jason about that.

Talk more soon.

Yes, Yes, I'm Still Alive

Once again my mom called to give me a hard time about the fact that I haven't been updating. Like many of you she uses my blog to check up and me, see how I'm doing, and see what I've been up to. Happily, everything is going well.

Last weekend Julia and I played poker at Jason and Liz's on Friday. It was Julia's first time and she did very well for a first-timer and she said she had a good time and would like to play again some time. Saturday I did all the normal things, then that evening we had a "double-date" with Julia's parents for dinner, then to see Woody Allen's movie Match Point. Her parent's are nice, but I think her dad was pretty tired from a hectic week. The movie was very good. And I mean surprisingly good. It was well-written, good characters, very good acting, and some good twists that really made it a surprise. I recommend checking it out.

Sunday we walked around the mall, did a little bit of shopping: clothes for Julia and a small LEGO set for me. Yeah, she's a girl, I'm a geek. Whaddyagonnado?

We played the last of Mike's Shadowrun game (for the time being) on Tuesday, so next on the rotation is Seth's DC Heroes game. Wednesday Seth, Jason, and I were supposed to get together to discuss some writing we all want to do, but Seth was ill, so we postponed. We still have to reschedule that. Thursday, Julia and I went to see Say Anything at Central Cinema in Seattle. It's a dinner-theatre and neither of us had been there before, but I'm sure we'll go back becuase it was pretty cool.

Tonight, if James is feeling well, we're headed to Tacoma to play poker, but I'll have to talk to him to see how he is. The sickness is going around again, y'know.

Okay, more later. I swear.