I have way too much time on my hands, and I'm using it to obsess over how I'm going to develop my character for the Star Wars RPG we recently started playing. And now I'm going to bore you with it. At least, those of you who didn't see "RPG" and just start scrolling past as quickly as you can.

In particular, I'm obsessing over armor and how useless it is. Without actually going into game mechanics*, because of the way your defense is calculated, by the time you can actually afford decent armor, it's probably already been rendered obsolete by your character level.

Also, I'm thinking about how I might configure my character's talents. Each character class has several "talent trees" to choose from. At every odd-numbered level, you get to pick a new talent. You don't have to strictly follow one tree, but the talents in each tree tend to work together, and I'm mulling over whether I should continue with the tree that I started with, which mostly focuses on protecting your allies, which better fits with my character's personality and background, or the "armor specialist" tree, which makes armor actually useful. Sort of. If you don't pay any attention to the limits armor puts on your dexterity bonus, which is important if you use guns a lot. Like my character, so far. I think, in the end, my character's going to decide that she's a tough broad and doesn't need no stinking armor.


*And we're talking the recent d20 version put out by Wizards of the Coast, not the older version published by West End Games, though it would so not surprise me if my brother has those source books, too.)

So, several weeks ago I acquired an invite to Google Wave from sea0tter12 (thank you!), and while I haven't really done anything with it yet aside from poke around the tutorials, today I got the opportunity to invite people, myself. So if anyone out there in f-list-land would like to jump on the latest Internet bandwagon with me, I have some invitations available.

Good news! :) A few weeks ago, my stepdad had a CAT scan and PET scan (on his birthday FTW), and his tumor has shrunk a little more, hasn't spread, and isn't showing any activity. He didn't get to see his regular oncologist, as he was out of town, so he might get something a little more detailed at his next appointment. For right now, he's continuing the course of chemo he's been on, which is not a bad one as chemo goes, and doesn't have many side effects.

Bad news. :( Not quite a month ago, my mom was in a minor car accident, not really anything much worth talking about. She fractured her foot, and the other person wasn't injured, and the damage seemed fairly minor: the other party's car was drivable and barely even had visible damage; my mom's car was more damaged, but it didn't seem like much.

Earlier this week, my mom got a call from the insurance company that they were totaling the car. Apparently the body shop kept finding new things to fix, and it ended up costing way more than the original estimate, almost as much as the value of the car. It could be worse; the payout was basically enough to just about pay off the car, but now my parents don't have anything to buy a new car with. At least we already have an extra car, so we don't need to do any crazy car-shuffling to get around.

This one is especially for cheshire23, since I know how she feels about helicopter parents. :)

Time article on the shift away from over-parenting

My favorite excerpt (emphasis added):

. . . He got to the art room and the teacher began raving about how creative his son was, pointing out his sketches that she'd displayed as models for other students. Then, Honoré recalls, "she dropped the G-bomb: 'He's a gifted artist,' she told us, and it was one of those moments when you don't hear anything else. I just saw the word gifted in neon with my son's name ..." So he hurried home and Googled the names of art tutors and eagerly told his son all about the special person who would help him draw even better. "He looks at me like I'm from outer space," Honoré says. "'I just wanna draw,' he tells me. 'Why do grownups have to take over everything?' "

Yesterday was my choir's biannual bake sale, and I spent half of Thursday and pretty much all of Friday in a marathon baking session. Twelve recipes became sixteen different items, because of the way I split up quick breads into muffins and different sizes of loaves. My hands are ravaged from all the handwashing and dishwashing, my feet still hurt (it doesn't help that I stayed to help out at the sale for several hours when I dropped my stuff off), and my back is very, very unhappy with me.

But! The first few sales I baked for, I averaged about $50-60 worth of goods for each sale. For our summer bake sale last June, I upped that to a little over $80. This time around, I came pretty close to doubling that figure. My goal was to make about $100 worth of stuff, but I ended up making almost $150 for the choir. Yes, there's stuff leftover (there's always stuff leftover), but they always bring the leftovers to rehearsal for a few weeks (the fundraising chair freezes it after the first week) and let choir members buy it off until it's gone.

My stepfather, when I was almost done on Friday, asked me if I didn't think I was going a little overboard. No, I don't. We have other fundraisers, and I contribute very little to them. I don't know too many people who want to buy Kringles, and since I still don't have a regular job, I can't just guilt coworkers into buying them. What am I going to do, sell them to teachers that I've only just met and might not see again for three months, if at all? Other people don't bake as much as I do, or at all, but they sell ten to fifteen Kringles to my three or four ( a few people sell over fifty. one guy puts us all to shame and sells over 100). Or they sell a bunch of Entertainment books, which I don't sell any of. Or they sell a crapload of concert tickets, which $DEITY knows I will never be able to do.

And I'm vain enough to admit that I get a huge sense of validation out of seeing very few of my things get packed away with the leftovers.

Lookit that, I'm actually answering one of these things. . . . and I apparently have a lot to say on the subject. If I were to put a title to this, it might be "Romantic Comedies Have Ruined It For Everyone." And I like the occasional RomCom.


The short answer is "no."

The longer, more complex answer is that I actually do think you can have a "soulmate," but I do not believe that one's soulmate(s) are necessarily going to be romantic partners. In fact, I think most of them probably won't be.¹ Do I have any soulmates? I've never really thought about it. Probably the closest thing I have is my friend Nettie, who I will never refer to by anything as trite as "BFF," but who has, in fact, been my best friend just about forever. (And who I really should call more often.)

I actually somewhat prefer what the inimitable Anne Shirley calls a "kindred spirit," which I find more inclusive. Some people just don't stay in your life forever, for a variety of reasons, but that doesn't mean you can't have a close connection while you are a part of each other's lives, and I think the concept of kindred spirit recognizes that.

( Regarding 'the One' . . . )

I'm leaving at midnight tonight to go on a 2100 mile road trip to Portland, OR. I just realized that I FORGOT TO PACK MY BRAS.

MY BRAS.

And guys, I SO cannot go without.

At least, since I'm changing my clothes before we leave, and I would've been putting on one of the ones I just washed, I would've remembered before we were out the door one way or another. BUT STILL.

I've been looking at a lot of Star Wars-themed art today, because I'm starting a Star Wars RPG pretty soon, and I can't find an image I like for my character.* And I noticed something: a lot of artists (this is not restricted to fan artists) depict female characters of races that are supposed to be reptilian or amphibian as having human-like breasts (this is not restricted to the SW universe). But breasts are mammary glands, and only mammals have mammary glands. Why would a reptilian race have breasts? Or an amphibian race? There is no biological reason for a Nautolan or a Mon Calamari or a Rodian to have mammary glands.

NEVER MIND the fact that I have no problem whatsoever accepting that bipedal, humanoid reptiles and amphibians exist in the first place. It is best for all concerned if no one brings up this paradox and the inherent ridiculousness of my objections.


*This is entirely my own fault, as I had to specify that my character wears a very particular hairstyle, instead of just saying "yeah, she has black hair," and sure, I can change my mind, but I don't really wanna.

Today, I subbed for a middle school math class, doing pre-algebra type stuff. In one class, there's this boy who's having a lot of difficulty understanding the material, and has been having difficulty throughout the whole class. (He even called himself stupid a couple of times. :( He's a sweet kid, too; he was in a few classes I subbed in last year.) So I'm trying to help this boy out and explain the problem he's having trouble with, when another kid comes right up and says "Hey, I think this stuff if really easy!" Not like, tauntingly, or anything, but like it just occurred to him to tell me that just then. Bwaaaaarrrrrgh! Why would you say that right in front of the kid who's having the most trouble getting it! Which, of course, I couldn't really say without drawing more attention to the fact the one boy didn't get it. I wanted to flail so much.

I watched Obama's health care speech tonight, I have to admit that I have mixed feelings. Now, I've been in favor of universal health care for years, but I think that it's really not tenable right now, if only because too many people are still against it to actually get it passed. I still hope that it's something we might move to down the line, but I would rather walk a middle path that will make some things better than try for radical change that will only leave us with the crappy status quo when it fails--and I'm further aware that the president serves the whole country, not just liberals like me, and I don't think he's selling out if he moves toward the center on some issues.

Yet I'm not sure that this particular middle path will do enough. It sounds like it will be better than what we have (provided Congress passes anything like what the president described tonight, or passes anything at all), but I don't know that it will be enough, and I'm ignorant enough about the economics of it all that I'm not certain I can talk about it intelligently. Bear in mind, I am one of the millions of people living entirely without health insurance right now, so I'm not exactly a disinterested party. All I really want, here, is to be able to go to a doctor myself. Even for a damn physical.

Bear in mind also that I'm pretty sure the number one reason my father died a year and a half ago is because of money, and that I think the issue with health care goes deeper than simply whether one has basic insurance coverage. My dad had health insurance most of the time he was ill (I don't know how good it was, but he had it). His problem had more to do with 1) being unable to work for months at a time and therefore being without an income and 2) eventually losing his job entirely because he was sick so long his FMLA time ran out. If he had the financial resources to simply pay his bills, he wouldn't have lost his house, wouldn't have had to move across the state, and wouldn't have had the interruption in his care that I believe ultimately did him in.

And all of this is more complex than the reforms we're currently talking about in the U.S. I'm not even sure at what point we should consider basic health care and catastrophic health care entirely different issues. I am not suggesting that it's somehow the government's fault I lost my dad (though the grieving do have a tendency to look for blame, don't we?); my father made plenty of his own mistakes that exacerbated his particular financial situation (like not telling anyone he was going to lose his house until the day before the foreclosure, so we didn't even have time to help him out). I'm only suggesting that medical bills alone are not the only reason people go broke when they get sick, and that maybe we should examine some of the resources available for those people, in addition to the insurance issue. Maybe now is not the time to look at some of these other things, but I can't help but think about them.

Dear People on the Internet,

The phrase is NOT "beckon call"; it is "beck and call." As in, "I am at my stepfather's beck and call."

Have a lovely day.

Claudia

PS: Yes, I know this is not, strictly speaking, a matter of grammar so much as it is vocabulary or maybe spelling, but I almost never get to use this icon, so nyah :P.

PPS: There is, it turns out, such a thing as a "beckon call"; it is "a handheld communications device that allowed its user to remotely access the systems and controls of a slave-rigged vehicle" in the Star Wars universe. I love Google.

So I downloaded this song because it was free. And I downloaded this less because I liked the sample (I did not) than because I read the album review and thought "You have got to be kidding me."

So now, I'm sharing it with you.

http://www.box.net/shared/po9436dx8g

Another in the line of outstanding classic rock revisionists that have lately taken indie rock by storm, Minneapolis's Mark Mallman streamlines the bluster of Boston and REO Speedwagon into something gutsier and punkier. Witness "You're Never Alone in New York": It's got the sleek synth pulse of a 70s rock anthem, but Mallman's sneering delivery undercuts any lurking cheese factor, making it instead as tough as knuckles to the face.

You tell me, music lovers! Is this a hidden gem that I will be a fool for removing from my harddrive forthwith (not that your advice will in any way alter that decision), or will you never forgive me for making you listen to it?

I just spent several hours of my day writing a grand, 1,000 word seduction/theft scene that I CAN'T USE because it's way too successful for how drunk the character is supposed to be at that point in time. I got carried away. Oh well, I'll file it away to use another time, and the scene that replaces it will be quite funny, I think.

So I'm playing this Neverwinter Nights module yesterday, and I'm trying to get through a battle that I've had to reload for about a hundred times. Finally, the battle is going off without a hitch, none of my henchies have died (and I rarely get through a battle without losing at least one), and the last enemy in the room is giving its dying cry . . .

And the game crashes.

Fuck you, Neverwinter Nights. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.




Yes, I did eventually get through that battle. After about a hundred more reloads.

I have always thought of myself as a great big ol' prude. I still think I'm a prude, only less so than, say, ten years ago. AND YET. When it comes to my D&D group, whether in gameplay or in character journaling (yeah, we're nerds, wanna make something of it?), I am often the instigator of our descent into gutter territory. With alarming frequency, even. (In fact, as I recall, I was the first person to bring smut into the journal narrative.) This despite having two guys in the group.

I don't know what it is. Maybe I just need an outlet, and roleplaying seemed like a safe one.

Oh vertigo, it's been so long since you've visited. I would say I missed you, but really, spending most of the day horizontal in front of the television is not my favorite way to spend my free time. I couldn't play any computer games today, because I can't sit in front of the computer longer than ten minutes at a time. And now I have to go grocery shopping tomorrow because I couldn't go today, and I hate doing my shopping on Saturday. Also? The stomach upset you invited along this time is not any better a house-guest than you are.

Dear "Eureka,"

What the hell do you think you're doing with this Carter/Tess crap? I thought I was imagining things, but no, it looks like you're really going there. Carter/Allison OTP!!! (I never thought I'd ever be so violently attached to a fandom pairing, seriously. But here I am.) I will accept nothing less.

No Love (until you give me Carter/Allison) (well, okay, maybe a little love),

Claudia

( cut for new episode spoilers )

I'm pet-sitting for waveform_delta this week, and I can't help but wonder if he ever opens a damn window around here. I've been keeping the window in the spare bedroom open at night, because the air conditioning in the living room doesn't really make it in there (I turn the air off and put it on fan, anyway, since it's been pretty cool at night this summer). The first night I opened the window, one of the kitties sat under it for five minutes sniffing, like she'd never smelled anything quite like that before. Today, it's really cool outside, so I left the air/heat unit on fan and opened the balcony door. At the first breeze that came in, both cats high-tailed it for waveform_delta's bedroom and hid under the bed. I think this is a new experience for them.

I've taken to relying on the Internet quite a bit for the expansion of my classical music collection, particularly early music and choral music. I mean, early music is obscure stuff, and hard to find in brick-and-mortar stores. Forget about choral music, unless it's Christmas season, or it's something huge and well known like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (not that I'm knocking the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, just making a point). Amazon and eMusic are just much easier to browse and discover new things, whereas I feel like in a store I have to know exactly what I'm looking for. Also, classical music and early music CDs tend to be really expensive, and it's usually cheaper to buy it digitally.

But there's a problem, and that is that I don't have liner notes when I buy digital, and that means I lack interesting background information on the music (it's not like pop songs that I can just find the lyrics for using Google). This doesn't always bother me; if I enjoy the music, I enjoy it whether I have historical notes on the music/composers or not. But when I'm looking at something like this Hesperion XXI CD, which includes not just European compositions, which make up most early music albums, but music from the Near and Middle East, I feel like I'm missing out by not getting the liner notes and the historical context for the selections. But I'm certainly not paying $25 for the CD with the liner notes when I can just download the album for $8.99.

Blargh. I'm not even sure I had a point in posting this, other than I just wanted to complain a little. But if anyone who actually read this out there is into early music, I'm always looking for new stuff, so I'm open to recommendations (even if I can't get the liner notes).