I finally broke down last week.

Monday I visited friends with cat, dog and rabbit, and got shunted into the seat by the rabbit. I lasted a half hour before I had to either leave or have an asthma attack.

Tuesday I called the allergist and made an appointment to get myself tested so I can restart allergy shots. My life is getting too restricted by avoiding places where the allergens dwell (and since all animal danders and dust are high on the allergen list, you can see where that might be a problem--especially given that every SCAdian seems to have at least one cat.)

Keep your fingers crossed. I might be able to live like a real person again eventually.

Somewhere towards the end of last weekend, some plant of terror began to pollenate and like a good boy I did what my doctor prefers me to do, take antihistamines rather than a antihstamine-decongestant combo. Result, I still reacted to the pollen and did not drain the sinuses, resulting in a sinus infecion.

Wednesday is an entirely blur to me. I slept almost all the way through it, and broke the fever that way. But there was still draining to do, and the rest of the week my body was going "Just let me sleep!"

So, it you talked to me this week and I was less communiative than usual, that's why.

So, this is the synopsis of the books I'm cataloguing:

"It is an argument over pineapple pizza that finally prompts jewelry-maker Suzannah to leave her stale marriage for a ramshackle cabin in the foothills of Wyoming's majestic Teton Range. As she strings necklaces, she untangles her complicated relationships with the mother she's losing to Alzheimer's, and with the adopted son who's spent his life chasing after his birth mother. But it's her new home's previous owner, easygoing "Marlboro Man" Bo Garrett, who threatens the satisfying life Suzannah is building for herself-and inspires her to explore more fully what it means to truly stand on her own."

That's odd, last time I saw the name Bo Garrett he was not precisely standing and he was definitely not with a woman. Suffice it to say it is not safe to google him from work. :-)

I was directed towards a blog:

http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com

And when I was done laughing my butt off, I bookmarked it so I can read it religiously. It matches my politics rather nicely, and, oh, the turns of phrase touch my heart.

Well, I can say that while I pity the folks out setting up for Pennsic, I was very productive today. I have basic notes written on all the Gencon games that I'd been brick-walled by all summer. No idea what it was about lightning and pour rain that set the gates of creativity open.

I'm most plesed by the background for my "serious" game "Human Resources". All tied up with the political fallout of the first war between the Elohim--no, not the Lucifer one. Gosh how I love messing about with Canaanite religon.

I'll see if I can use down time at Pennsic to finish the details. Yes, I know, gaming's not period, so sue me.

Thank you Randy Milholland for reminding us that "just because you buy a book for your kindle you don't actually own that copy. They can take it back whenever they please."

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/some-e-books-are-more-equal-than-others/

Well, I think I have gotten caught up on my sleep again--just in time to go to Jersey for Dexcon. What's the word I'm looking for? Frakking masochist?

Well, if I get half the reaction I got from players at Origins, it will have been worth the while. :-)

Last day, and I drug myself in to run Calamity and Holmes. Good group, but you could tell that people were seriously dragging by this point in the convention. After Mary Moran and her cronies were defeated, I wandered about saying goodbye to folks and trying to find where Johnny Ampersand had wandered off to (we found each other outside the dealer room after I picked up our unsold stock--yes, we sold books thank you sweet baby jesus!)

After that it was simply a matter of consuming way too much Old Bag of Nails fish and chips and then crawling back home to collapse into a heap. But a well-contented heap.

So, what were the pluses? Great gamers, great games, efficient and friendly volunteer staff running the RPG HQ table, friends, family, some new dice (I found dice with Arabic numbers on them at the Koplow Games and tried to sell them on making d20s because those would be way cool with Sindbad--as well as any other d20 Arabian Nights game; we'll see what comes of this) and good food at the North Market.

The minuses? Was attendance down this year? All my games ran and most were full, but there just seemed to be too few bodies in the space. There were people there I'd have loved to meet, but couldn't because of commitments. Oh, and one really crabby waitress at Max and Ermas (and this was on Thursday.)

Was the con worth it? Oh hell yeah!
Can I wait until next year? I guess I'll have to (and make do with Dexcon and Gencon and...)

There was a change to the whole feel of the convention once I was down to only one game a day. It was weird.

In any case, throwing all forethought to the wind I said I would sit at the demo table at the GPA booth on Friday morning (and a more productive two hours of watching people walk past looking blank I've not had in years.) And of course it didn't occur to me until Friday morning that Johnny Ampersand had to get his badge from me, and he couldn't get into the dealers' room where I was to get it. Oh, kvark.

Then my second comeuppance. Apparently I'd also reset my new phones ringer so that it was inaudible and non-vibratory so that when Mr. Ampersand did call, and call, and call, I was sitting there like a bedazed cow. Sigh, had I mentioned that I don't do technology?

Happily they let him run his game, and I was able to pop up about halfway through and deliver his badge and game attendance sheets. I will let Johnny talk about his own games, but they I never saw one that was under-attended.

I had Support Your Local Spellslinger, my fantasy/western followup to The Necromancer's Apprentice from last year, and eventually our journeyman spellslingers managed to figure out how to defeat the meanest hombe in the Western Wilds, Xeno the Superswift (you get points for figuring out where I stole that one from) and thereby save Silver City from Certain Doom!

Johnny's Gilgamesh game was in the evening, and I thought that I had better show up to support this because who in the right mind would show up to play Gilgamesh? Well, an entire crew of gamers that kick RPG ass was who, including probably the only drooling Gilgamesh fanboy at the convention. And by drooling I mean he aws quoting Gilgamesh's lines from memory and had "Gilgamesh" in cuneiform branded into his upper arm (but the scarrring was healing and he needed to have it done again.) Shall we say, this was an epicly enjoyable game.

Saturday I had Intro to QAGS in the morning, but only had one taker, so I tol her about how QAGS works, and how we've used it, found out that she was from the Coshocton area and going to be at Con on the Cob where I told her we would be as well, and then sent her off to get her refund for minimum number of players not met.

An afternoon game, a quick dinner at Barley's Irish Pub, and then I was back for Return of the Space Gods. Fate and Icebear showed up for this, along with Great Scot, my brother, and a few unsuspecting souls, and in total over the top skiffy action we rearranged the cosmos to prevent the Space Gods from coming back into Spacetime to destroy all life. Johnny Ampersand may say he's never prepared for games, but he runs a mean improvisation if that's the case, 'cause we were loud and raucous.

And then home, where I wrote my Sunday gamign group and said that Uncle Ajax was going to be totally brain-dead after Origins closed on Sunday, and he would not be running another frakking game for a week!

They love them some QAGS here in Origins Game Fair-land, and I have to say that if the rest of the con is as good as the first two days, then I am coming back for the fun of it, not the duty.

GAMA decided to add a full day Wednesday this year. Experience from previous years had show us that Wednesday games were very popular. It may be because there is not as much competition, but whatever the cause this year proved no exception to the rule.

I had two games: Fairy Tale/Noir in the afternoon and Strange Times: I Am Mythos in the evening. FTN got a crew that was learning the system (yes, we got new blood) but they managed to find out what shady stuff was going on in the PDF (Professional Dwarf Fighting) and bring a resolution that did not work out very well for Snow White and her boytoy, Tripple ZZZ (Sleepy.) Oh well, them’s the breaks—literally. Then Strange Times roared onto the stage with a terrorist attack on the ST corporate offices, and our intrepid reporters had to go back in time and stop the Order of Leviathan (a weird Middle Eastern terrorist group that was not remotely Islamic, though they were certainly fundamentalist in the truest sense of the word.) They ended up with an alien death walker (a la War of the Worlds) and managed to get it back to New York in time to put the kaybosh on the Leviantanites. Great fun was had by all in both games.

I need to mention that Our Friend, Mr. Evangelista, was running QAGS games of his own this year (Doc Svage and the Green Hornet,) and he caught me was I was coming in. “Hve you seen the schedule yet?” “Uh, no I just got here.” “Your game tomorrow is at 7AM.” Oh frak. “Okay, thanks for the heads up.” And it proved true. Yours truly apparently can’t type “7PM” reliably, so I was doomed this morning to get up and face the music at Oy Dark Thirty.

And I’m glad I did. There were 6 players there for a 7 Ay you have got to be kidding me Em game, and they were the Best Damned Players I’ve had so far. Eager, creative, emotive, devious—they ran the original FT/N scenario in such a way that we have spectators. They were trying to look in conspicuous, but they were listening to the game anyhow. The guy, Timmy, who ran Ernest the Third Little Pig (Weakness: flashbacks to watching his brothers getting eaten by the Big Bad Wolf) was so good, I am going to give him a copy of QAGS when I see him tomorrow. He really was the best role player I’ve seen in a while, let alone be privileged to run for. (And best of all, he's frmot eh Catskill region and possibly going to bring his friends to Dexcon in a coupel of weeks to do the QAGS.)

The afternoon game, Toon Messiah, only got two players, a guy and his girlfriend, and she was unsure about role playing. The game went off, but since I'd been hoping for a whole WB zanifest it was just a little underwhelming. Most of the zany that did happen was because I prompted it, and the full toonish wackiness was just not popping. Oh well, they still got through the scenario and seemed to have fun.

So far, nobody’s walked out, and every game has had enough to run.

Only three games to go (for me.)

Oh, and I walked the dealers' room but didn't see anything I want except a DVD entitles 1612 about an invasion of Russia after the death of Boris Gudanov. The bit I saw had loud noises, promary colors, and a Polish knight (They had these imbecilic wings added to their armor--God alone knows why, but they did) galloping around the battlefield with him and his wings blazing. That's going to leave a mark.