Rats! ( not literal ) & Hunter: the Reckoning

They moved the whole friggin' schedule a single day, which means that even though I thought I was clear for the Cam game on the 24th, now I'm not. This is basically the irritation I knew I'd be packing during the schedule change, so I know that i'm going to be sending another e-mail over to Vi with the heading of, "Pls do my work for me, kthxbai". At the moment, this is super frustrating, because I really intended to be at most of these functions. Luckily, I checked ahead, and I'm pretty sure I don't lose any of the post-May functions I intended to show up at. It could have been a lot worse, since my weekends off alternate, and I could easily have gotten the wrong schedule.

Generally speaking, things are looking up. I'm still considering the logistics of a potential Seattle move, if only because I've wanted to for a long time, and it's a distinct possibility. There are a lot of little issues I'd want to resolve before they ever came up. Like, plane tickets cost in a certain range, I have rats in my care (so I guess the title is a little literal), my host is fully intending to come back to the area for a period in the summer (so I might want to hold off a bit), ect. Even if I don't end up going, planning like this seems like good practice for other potential moves. 

Anyhow, I haven't spent a lot of time at Casa de Thanatos lately, since even if I didn't have plans for myself this week, there was a good chance someone else did. Often, I'd come over only to discover a lot of guys sitting around whose plans sounded more like, "Let's buy beer, followed by drinking all of that beer." At first, I kind of thought they were trying the old, "Cheer him up by getting him smashed." routine, but I recently discovered that this is SOP. Frank, because he easily trumps everyone else in the finances department at the moment, is generally the buyer, and they've been drinking in lieu of any better ideas to which I responded that even if they were all already playing another game, we could have spent all this time playing another game. And as much as I like Scrabble, there's nothing like role-playing to make an evening interesting. 

That, or clubbing, but it took me a second to remember I didn't know any nearby clubs.

Me: "Anyone know any good clubs around? I know Fairview's shot on that scene. How about Edwardsville?"
Wormtongue Associate: "This isn't such a great town for anything with electronic music."
Me: "Fuck."

Of course, I could just be in the dark. But anyhow, that discussion pretty much lead to the rapid appropriation of cheap, OOP gaming suppliments. As much as I love NWoD mechanics and settings, I think Wormtongue as a gaming organization is strongly supportive of the older edition based purely on how many books they can pick up for under 5 dollars, basically turning such excellent licences as Hunter and Wraith into the gaming equivilent of Value Meals. I had a friend who didn't like Hunter based purely on the fact that, on the meta-plot level, it functionally ended Wraith, which was his all time favorite line. Considering that they pretty much exist on a continuity, though, I like to think of them as two different sides of the same game. Both of them really had everything they needed to be harrowing and potent gaming experiance, and even though I typically had the most fun with Mage, it's hard to say that Mage is better then either of these two lines.

So, I'm not sure if I'll be playing Hunter soon, but I may, which is enough to get me stoked. But I remember having problems with playing it with others in the past, so I'm not sure if that'll come up again.

A Very Blustery Day

Last night was fine until about 3 AM, when I'm pretty sure everyone's power in about 5 or 6 counties went out all at once, in several areas each, due to wind, tree limbs, and even uprooted poles. My power rarely goes out for anything but the very worst of storms, so when I started working, I was surprised to find out how even mildly bad weather will almost always result in someone losing electric. I love how a lot of people frame their call ins though. It's often, "We've run out of electric." as if there were a tap somewhere, and their reservoir went dry. Or how some people will ask to be bumped higher on the list, as if we were restoring houses one at a time. But I don't really expect them to know how power companies work, these things truly just tickle me, though I don't tell the callers since I doubt they'd appreciate my mirth. It's not at their expense, or anything, just people's view of the world is unendingly fascinating to me. 

But seriously, it was really bad. I left a half hour late, making my shift 10.5 hours without a break since 3 am. I woke up tired, but a cup of coffee set me right. Now I'm just kind of like, "I wonder what I want to do with my day."