Pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, redux

So I've always been enamored with having a Blog and exerting my thoughts on the world at large, et al, etc.

That being said, I haven't posted in two months so I've decided that the best thing for everyone is for me to call "do-over" on the whole thing and so, with a fresh coat of paint and a new name, I begin again.

The changes you will see are two fold. The first is anecdotes and insights on the gaming I get done Monday nights and the other gaming I do throughout the week in addition to anecdotes and insights into being a largely unemployed father and husband. "But Chuk," you say. "There are a maxillian other Blogs about gaming, what makes yours so special?" Well, I'll tell you: Besides the fact that those other Blogs aren't written by me, nothing. "Oh," you reply, clearly uncomfortable. "OK." The second dealy is that I'm going to try to keep myself on a schedule. Monday nights after the game, Thursday, and Saturday.

So, Wifey and Father-in-law are taking Bug on a trip to see extended family in West Virginia. This is the longest period that I've been on my own in a year and a half. It is also a Double XP weekend for City of Heroes/Villains (CoX) so I intend to have a superpowered weekend full of superpowers.

It's not just you...

As some of you may know through the social osmosis that is Twitter and MySpace/Facebook, I lost the job I had at Fulton Bank. It was a temporary position sure, but I was comfortable there and got along fairly well with my coworkers and did the best I could at it. According to my agent at AppleOne I was let go to be replaced by a college student. So it's been a week since I've worked and my mood has been up and down. I've been trying to find solace in the idea that it's hard all over and that many people are in a similar situation. It doesn't really help, but I keep trying.

Bahie let me borrow Lost Odyssey and I'm digging it so far (although for a bunch of immortals they seem fairly predisposed to crumpling over and dying).

I really, really want to be reading more. So far I'm 3/4 of the way through Bonehunters and 18 pages into Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

Beyond

Ok, yes. It has been nearly two months since my last post and for the ones and ones of you that read this blog, I apologize. Of course, since so much time has past it's going to be impossible for me to relate everything that's happened over that time.

So instead, I'll talk about a few things that have been going on recently:
Today, I'm sick. Maybe. I've been feeling off all day, and since both Miranda and my mother in law have had fevers, I assume the headaches and "swimminess" in my head are due to the on set of some sickness. Chance of it being the swine flu? Minimal.

So yes: Miranda has been sick. I came home Friday night looking forward to a fast and loose evening of not doing much and ended up spending a few hours of it at Patient First where I paid a $30 copay for them to take a few possibilities off the table (i.e. It's not strep or flu). So at the end of the weekend I had convinced myself and Amanda that it was side-effects of new teeth coming in. Then mom in law and myself come down with something, and now it's all weird. Miranda, on the other hand, was zooming around all morning without a care in the world. So at least she's feeling better.

As some of you may know, I host a Monday night gaming group where we've been enjoying a rousing Shadowrun campaign run by my buddy Nate. In it I play a Troll mafioso by the name of Slabber (as in, he puts people on slabs) who acts in most situations as either a negotiating liability or a meat turrett (he's terrifying with an assault rifle). Starting last week I shifted gears a bit at the table and started running a Feng Shui game. I had to cancel tonight's game as I am sick. However, I'm excited to be behind the GM Screen again and telling tales. I really enjoy running games because you can start off with a story in mind and have it shifting week to week as the players say and do things you'd never be able to prepare for.

I'm going to try to update again later this week and then keep it to an update a week after that. I also want to keep my community involved, so if there's a subject you'd like me to comment on, let me know.

You can't take the sky from me...

I want to start off by apologizing for the last blog post, which was apparently penned by none other than Mopey McMoperson, a whiny Irishman of some renown.

So I've been sitting on every episode of LOST from this season; I've just been waiting. Can't really sure why, just have been. So yesterday I figured it was time to get back on the horse. Now, up until now, my relationship with LOST has had similar symptoms to that of an abusive relationship. At the beginning it was fun. We were learning new things about each other and the mystery was exciting. OOOooo... what's so special about Walt? Who are the Others? That kind of thing. But as the relationship goes on, you realize you aren't getting any answers. Maybe you Google their name. What you find doesn't just raise more questions, but you're weirded out by what others are saying about this new influence in your life. You start to demand answers and are punished for it. Eventually you just learn to keep your mouth shut.

I missed the entirety of season 3, and part of me is proud of that. I come back in season 4 and they're doing flash forwards... holy shit. Now we're getting somewhere. Not only is the narrative structure unique, especially for television, but there's a pin-prick of understanding. The edge pieces of the puzzle are starting to reveal themselves (FYI, I've switched metaphors). Now in season 5, it seems they've finished off the edges for us. Time travel. Thank GAWD! This is a notion I can deal with, and use to make sense of what's been going on. The island moves in space and time. OK. Sounds great. The characters are interesting again, too.

Also, I watched the Firefly pilot again for the first time in about two years. What a fucking good show.

Half Jack

If there's anything I've gotten good at, it's shouldering the weight of my own history. Memory is so imperfect. I know things weren't as great as I remember them, but I remember them being amazing and it hurts me to know that little boy in the black make up sitting in Margary's room listening to Marilyn Manson is gone. He's like a guy I used to know who had a strong influence on me. A best friend whom I lost touch with after a time. Am I making sense? There's a sense of loss associated with my memories of myself.

Perhaps it's the simplicity of those times. Floating through classes during the week, then going to Rocky and the West End Friday, and maybe Saturday nights. Type O Negative and Sisters of Mercy provided the soundtrack. Most of my memories are pegged on whoever I was dating at the time and I recall the time frame of them in relation to a girl's name. I think that's a little odd, but it is what it is.

I wish I could give young me some of the esteem that I have now. Just a bit. Just so he would have smiled more and taken more chances. Had more friends. None of my friends from high school are close to me any more. I still have channels to a surprising number, but I don't see any of them. Jeremiah was it and I just got tired of his self-centeredness.

Come to mention it, Miranda's birth shifted things just as the end of High School did. Two of my friends who I thought I was pretty tight with have barely made an appearance in the past 14 months.

I know this is the common lament of everyone who realizes that their youth is behind them. Miranda is my youth now, I guess. If it wasn't for her I think I'd be having a harder time with my current situation that I am.

Brought to you today by the letter "C"...

So I was thinking about the third letter of the alphabet today. It's a subject I've put some thought into in the past and today I made a desision. I'm going to stop using the letter "C" as much as I possibly can. "But J.R.", you, my dear reader, my say, "You just used it while spelling 'much'". Indeed I did and I'll defend that slip in a moment.

Now, the letter "C" as we all know is pronounced as an "S" sound as in "century" or a "k" sound as in "counter". It is the only letter that does not make a unique sound in its own right, but rather mimiks the sounds of two other letters. There is no reason, beyond tradition and konvention, that we should keep the letter. It would drop the number of letters to a more aesthetically pleasing 25, for one thing, and bring a more logikal and phoenetik spelling to many of the words in the English language. There is one konsession I'm willing to make, and that is the "ch" dipthong. Here the letter "C" would take its rightful plase as a grammatikal and alphabetikal oddity. A generation from now, children will ask their parents: "Mommy/Daddy what's that weird letter that isn't in the alphabet?" To which the parents will shrug. "Better not to speak of it," they would say.

So, dear reader, I urge you to join me in my quest to rid the English language of this parasite letter. This unnessesary and konfusing blight to our dear alphabet. Strike it from your korespondenses and defend your right and, indeed, duty in doing so.

Let my love...

Well, it's been a few weeks since I've updated. I wish, of course, that I had a good reason why that is. I don't. Have one that is. A reason... er.

My job is going along, and it's coming to a close in the next week. So I've updated my resume on Monster.com and such. Hopefully something else will come up. I'm so tired of doing this dance. On the upside, since it's the end of the season at the ole' United Way, I've gotten some paid time off. I was off all day Thursday, then got off at 11am Friday. THEN there's a chance I'll get at least some of Monday off. All paid. It's pretty great, but terribly short lived.

I've watched a few movies in the past several days: Babylon A.D.; Find me Guilty; and Dan in Real Life. Yes, that's two Vin Diesel movies. Babylon A.D. was standard Vin fare. He was essentially playing Riddick again. Which is fine. I had no problem with his performance. The issue I had with the movie was that there was too much emphasis on what was happening and not why it was happening. So two hours in you have Vin Diesel with a cyber-hand and multi-ethnic children living in a cabin. Sure, I can connect the dots, but there was no incentive to connect those dots.

Find Me Guilty, on the other hand, was a pleasantly surprising film and I was happy to see Vin doing something different.

Am I a Vin Deisel fan? Yep. Jason Statham and Vin Diesel are taking the place of the last generation action actors.

More soon I think.