Going Out In Style
Wow, a lot has happened... And yet some things stay the same. No, LJ, I do not want to use the "new" post editor. I stand by my opinion that it is a waste of webpage space.
I feel like I've been going non-stop for months now. I honestly don't remember what was going on in my life the last time I posted, so I'll just give the highlights since the end of winter.
I participated in both the April and July Camp NaNoWriMo sessions, and the server I run actually had some active people during the events! Pretty awesome compared to last year when really no one but me was on the server from Jan-Oct. In related NaNo news, I was officially chosen to be a Municipal Liason for my state for this year! That means I get to help WriMos in my state prepare for NaNo, help with the kick off and closing parties, and host in-person write-ins throughout the month. I haven't had a chance to talk to my co-MLs, since I just received the title yesterday, but I am planning to see if they would like to make the server official for our region. THat'd be nicer on me because it would mean set-in-stone rules that people can't whine and say they want us to change. We can instead point them to the NaNo site and tell them if it won't fly on there, it is unacceptable in the server. Plus, everything the MLs do is stuff I have been doing for the server for the past two years running. So... it wouldn't be anything new for me, haha. I am thinking for NaNo this November I may work on my D&D novelization of my in-person campaign. I have fallen behind on it and NaNo is a great time to catch up.
I have been picking up the fundraising for Extra Life. If you'd like to donate, I can comment with a link to the fundraising page, but I don't want to be one of *those* people and shove it down everyone's throats. Still, I am slowly expanding my collection of games to play this year on Game Day. If you know any games that are for kids (but still fun as an adult to play) or have kids as the main characters, let me know!!! I try to keep to the kid theme since the money I raise goes towards my local CHildrens Miracle Network Hospital. Coming up on Aug 24-25 it is Extra Life's Tabletop Appreciation Weekend. I managed to talk my in-person D&D group into agreeing to stream our session that day. We plan to keep the camera on the table because not everyone is ok with showing their face, which I 100% understand. Just means if things get slow I may end up amusing myself by playing with the minis in front of the camera XD
In other D&D-related news, my friend started his own homebrew campaign online and talked me into joining. I roped my cousin into it, too. In this group I play a tiefling swashbuckler named Harlock (four points if you get the reference). He was originally supposed be a kind of quiet type, but everyone else is playing serious characters, so Harlock has become a goofball who keeps things lighthearted for the most part. He gets up to some great shenanigans, and I have taken to chronicling the best moments in what we as a group are calling The Book Of Harlock. The plan is for Harlock to amass his own following of people who love to listen to him tell ridiculous stories of his adventures, where he always seems to be the hero and narrowly escape a tragic fate and defeat crazy monsters and enemies. He will give this book to his followers, who will use it as their handbook on how to properly emulate him. Yes, Harlock has become a bit of a narcissist, but he's earned a little bit of it. Just a tiny little bit. The rest is in his head, but don't tell him that. Let him have his happy little bubble. The other players love seeing what Harlock is going to get up to next. I've decided that playing a chaotic good character gives me a lot more freedom than I have with my neutral good Tabaxi. I'm genuinely excited about him. I made a model of him in Hero Forge and have been very much considering ordering it as a custom mini. This campaign is online, though, so I have been hesitant. Anywhere, here he is!
Regarding work, I had two weeks in the middle of July where I was doing the work of three people. I am on a mini-team of 3, and one is out on medical leave while the other was on a two-week vacation. It was crazy busy, but I actually think I did really well! I solved all the problems that came my way, the work didn't get behind, and (as my boss pointed out) I stayed smiling through all of it. I'm pretty proud of myself for making it through all of that, not gonna lie. Especialy since the person on medical leave has a suuuuuper complicated vendor account they manage (which I dove right in and got a hold of), and the other person (who annoys me to no end and never stops talking) left a huge disaster because her brain was in lalaland for the week or so leading up to her vacation. I'm not kidding when I say "disaster" either. She had some very unhappy contacts that I had to sweet talk and beg forgiveness from because she was not doing anything at all before her trip. When she came back she never even commented on the fact that I cleaned up her mess. Instead, she just kept complaining about being back at work and kept distratcing everyone to tell us yet another story from her trip that literally no one cared about or asked for.
But I digress. What else has happened... Man, when I list out the highlights it doesn't feel like as much.
OH! I went to Otakon again!!! I love going. It's so much fun! I'm not huge into anime, but I do enjoy some shows. I used to read a fair amount of manga, too. But the con also has a video game hall and a bunch of music-related events, too. I love going and attending panels, and walking around to try and see how many cosplays I recognize. My guys were all there, so it was nice to have people to meet up with for food, and walk around the city with, and help me with covert early holiday shopping. I picked up a gift from my buddy Draco, who is a huge Godzilla fan. He kept eyeing a poster that had Godzilla and said "What Would Godzilla Do", but he couldn't bring himself to buy it. Draco stuck to me like glue for most of the con, so I asked Flash to be my secret agent and buy it for me. He held on to it until this weekend when I saw him again. So that's one friend down for the holidays already. I think this is the earliest I've ever had something for someone, haha. One really cool thing Flash and I got to do was play in these huge... well, cockpits, basically. You sit in there and are completely encased. There is a 180 degree curved screen and you have levers and buttons and pedals and you get to pilot this mech and fight other mechs. Flash is a big fan of Evangelion, so as we were getting ready to go in looked him dead in the eye all serious and told him "Call me Shinji, because I'm getting in the fucking robot." He froze for a solid ten seconds before laughing. It was wonderful.
Ok, I think that's all the highlights of the past 4-ish months... How about you guys? Any big life changes? What's new?!
I feel like I've been going non-stop for months now. I honestly don't remember what was going on in my life the last time I posted, so I'll just give the highlights since the end of winter.
I participated in both the April and July Camp NaNoWriMo sessions, and the server I run actually had some active people during the events! Pretty awesome compared to last year when really no one but me was on the server from Jan-Oct. In related NaNo news, I was officially chosen to be a Municipal Liason for my state for this year! That means I get to help WriMos in my state prepare for NaNo, help with the kick off and closing parties, and host in-person write-ins throughout the month. I haven't had a chance to talk to my co-MLs, since I just received the title yesterday, but I am planning to see if they would like to make the server official for our region. THat'd be nicer on me because it would mean set-in-stone rules that people can't whine and say they want us to change. We can instead point them to the NaNo site and tell them if it won't fly on there, it is unacceptable in the server. Plus, everything the MLs do is stuff I have been doing for the server for the past two years running. So... it wouldn't be anything new for me, haha. I am thinking for NaNo this November I may work on my D&D novelization of my in-person campaign. I have fallen behind on it and NaNo is a great time to catch up.
I have been picking up the fundraising for Extra Life. If you'd like to donate, I can comment with a link to the fundraising page, but I don't want to be one of *those* people and shove it down everyone's throats. Still, I am slowly expanding my collection of games to play this year on Game Day. If you know any games that are for kids (but still fun as an adult to play) or have kids as the main characters, let me know!!! I try to keep to the kid theme since the money I raise goes towards my local CHildrens Miracle Network Hospital. Coming up on Aug 24-25 it is Extra Life's Tabletop Appreciation Weekend. I managed to talk my in-person D&D group into agreeing to stream our session that day. We plan to keep the camera on the table because not everyone is ok with showing their face, which I 100% understand. Just means if things get slow I may end up amusing myself by playing with the minis in front of the camera XD
In other D&D-related news, my friend started his own homebrew campaign online and talked me into joining. I roped my cousin into it, too. In this group I play a tiefling swashbuckler named Harlock (four points if you get the reference). He was originally supposed be a kind of quiet type, but everyone else is playing serious characters, so Harlock has become a goofball who keeps things lighthearted for the most part. He gets up to some great shenanigans, and I have taken to chronicling the best moments in what we as a group are calling The Book Of Harlock. The plan is for Harlock to amass his own following of people who love to listen to him tell ridiculous stories of his adventures, where he always seems to be the hero and narrowly escape a tragic fate and defeat crazy monsters and enemies. He will give this book to his followers, who will use it as their handbook on how to properly emulate him. Yes, Harlock has become a bit of a narcissist, but he's earned a little bit of it. Just a tiny little bit. The rest is in his head, but don't tell him that. Let him have his happy little bubble. The other players love seeing what Harlock is going to get up to next. I've decided that playing a chaotic good character gives me a lot more freedom than I have with my neutral good Tabaxi. I'm genuinely excited about him. I made a model of him in Hero Forge and have been very much considering ordering it as a custom mini. This campaign is online, though, so I have been hesitant. Anywhere, here he is!
Regarding work, I had two weeks in the middle of July where I was doing the work of three people. I am on a mini-team of 3, and one is out on medical leave while the other was on a two-week vacation. It was crazy busy, but I actually think I did really well! I solved all the problems that came my way, the work didn't get behind, and (as my boss pointed out) I stayed smiling through all of it. I'm pretty proud of myself for making it through all of that, not gonna lie. Especialy since the person on medical leave has a suuuuuper complicated vendor account they manage (which I dove right in and got a hold of), and the other person (who annoys me to no end and never stops talking) left a huge disaster because her brain was in lalaland for the week or so leading up to her vacation. I'm not kidding when I say "disaster" either. She had some very unhappy contacts that I had to sweet talk and beg forgiveness from because she was not doing anything at all before her trip. When she came back she never even commented on the fact that I cleaned up her mess. Instead, she just kept complaining about being back at work and kept distratcing everyone to tell us yet another story from her trip that literally no one cared about or asked for.
But I digress. What else has happened... Man, when I list out the highlights it doesn't feel like as much.
OH! I went to Otakon again!!! I love going. It's so much fun! I'm not huge into anime, but I do enjoy some shows. I used to read a fair amount of manga, too. But the con also has a video game hall and a bunch of music-related events, too. I love going and attending panels, and walking around to try and see how many cosplays I recognize. My guys were all there, so it was nice to have people to meet up with for food, and walk around the city with, and help me with covert early holiday shopping. I picked up a gift from my buddy Draco, who is a huge Godzilla fan. He kept eyeing a poster that had Godzilla and said "What Would Godzilla Do", but he couldn't bring himself to buy it. Draco stuck to me like glue for most of the con, so I asked Flash to be my secret agent and buy it for me. He held on to it until this weekend when I saw him again. So that's one friend down for the holidays already. I think this is the earliest I've ever had something for someone, haha. One really cool thing Flash and I got to do was play in these huge... well, cockpits, basically. You sit in there and are completely encased. There is a 180 degree curved screen and you have levers and buttons and pedals and you get to pilot this mech and fight other mechs. Flash is a big fan of Evangelion, so as we were getting ready to go in looked him dead in the eye all serious and told him "Call me Shinji, because I'm getting in the fucking robot." He froze for a solid ten seconds before laughing. It was wonderful.
Ok, I think that's all the highlights of the past 4-ish months... How about you guys? Any big life changes? What's new?!