Dust Raven

Well, we now have less than 12 months before the end of the world. Even now rumors of apocalyptic destruction are flying about the delusional half of the new age crowd. If such foretellings are true, the Earth shall be consumed by a black hole, annihilated (somehow) by the solar maximum, or collide with Nibiru. Some also believe 2012 will actually issue in an age of enlightenment and peace in some kind of “Age of Aquarius”. But if you believe all the futurist sci-fi literature, all we can really expect is the total economic collapse America and a possible religious takeover of the government.

2011 was an… interesting year. This has been my first year since becoming unemployed from a full-time permanent job that I’ve not worked or earned any money at all. None. I’ve gotten a few interviews but nothing that’s actually progressed all the up to a pay check. I’ve also received no freelance work. Fortunately DeAnna is still gainfully employed and her job alone can cover the majority of our expenses. I know I can’t expect to receive unemployment benefits forever, and they are really dwindling now, but the supplemental income is helping to make ends meet. Seeing as how I can expect them to run out sometime in February I’m going to expand my job search to part-time and minimum wage positions, as any wage is better than no wage.

Back in October I receive a new smartphone for my birthday. It’s a Samsung T-499, which is kinda low-end, but function and does all those things I want a smartphone to do. I’m actually quite impressed with it. Even without installing any apps it was capable of just about everything I was looking for in a phone. A few apps later and it can now do things I never expected a phone to do (such as roll dice and look up rules for RPGs). I’m gonna have to get DeAnna one of these for her birthday, provided we have the income to afford the extra $35/month T-Mobile wants for 3G service.

Our cat Ember is now over a year old and has spent a full year with us. She is still so tiny. Here is a (blurry) photo of her:

We lost Jared this year. He was old, but not ancient, but very sick. I’ve had Jared since he was a kitten. I adopted him from the Humane Society, almost by accident. I had given a friend a ride so she could adopt a cat of her own, and I had asked to see a black kitten only a month or so old while I was waiting. As it turned out, she could not adopt as her apartment management could not be contacted to confirm they allowed pets, but rather than leaving empty handed she paid for my adoption of the kitten, which I named Jared. That was so long ago. I miss you Jared.

With our loss of Jared, we’ve considered getting a new kitten to keep Ember company, though we wanted to wait until after the new year to look. I’m not sure what we’ll be looking for but as with Ember, I’m sure something will come up and just the right time and will be perfect.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my cousin Mark moved in. His job is going well, though I’m not sure if it’s paying him enough to give him any independence. This coming year I’m hoping he’ll look into getting financial aid and get into school for something better. Any amount of independence won’t happen until after college, but he’ll be working in that direction and will be expanding his network of people he knows here in Phoenix. I’m worried he doesn’t get out enough, but who am I to talk?

Another one of our friends moved up to Seattle just prior to Thanksgiving. It seems that’s really the place to go, as we now know more people living up there than we do locally. Kinda weird since a long time ago DeAnna and I had decided if we were going to move anywhere but here, it’d be to Seattle. It’s comforting to know what once we make the move we’ll already know so many people there.

In the gaming world, my MMO of choice, City of Heroes, went free to play. This thrills me to no end. There are still plenty of perks to having a paid subscription, but it’s good to know if I can’t make the subscription payment for a month or two I can still play. My other MMO of choice (Lord of the Rings Online) went free to play last year, and I’m loving that as well. My new D&D campaign is going surprisingly well, though I’m still aching to actually play something rather than be the GM all the time. One of my players has offered to run, and is interested in taking over as GM for my campaign. I’ve never handed over the reins of my own campaign world before, so I’m a little scared and a lot excited over the idea. Best of all I’ll have a chance to play. I just hope I don’t try to back-seat GM or criticize too much.

Christmas has come and gone, and despite not having a lot of money to go around we managed to get gifts for everyone. Mom was thrilled to get Cowboys & Aliens, and we got Jacob a remote control helicopter (which I immediately broke after opening, but I’ll get him a new one come payday). We got mark an iTunes gift card for use with his iPhone and a 6-pack of Lucky Buddha beer (the bottles are shaped like a Buddha and the beer tastes great!). We did a gift exchange with our D&D group as well, which was awesome. I got Bruno, who is new to the game and who I don’t know that well, a 6-pack of Lucky Buddha beer. DeAnna got Marianne a set of spooky shot glasses. Rob made us an ornament made of copper wire which bears our name (we might keep this up year ’round). Shane got me a t-shirt (Sarcasm: the body’s natural defense against stupid) which actually fits. I’m of a large size and impossible to buy clothing for, and this is the first time anyone has bought me a piece of clothing that fit since I was 12. (Not entirely true, but I’m not counting the t-shirt gifts from my friend who already knew my size because he was the same).

Christmas Eve DeAnna and I took a drive around the neighborhood to take a look at all the decorations once more. Right around midnight some had decorated an entire neighborhood with luminaries. It was incredible! Many of them were still lit and they made the night more magical. I have no idea who was responsible for it, but I thank them for such a grand effort, despite the lateness of the hour it did not go unappreciated.

Well, it’s now the new year, and it’s time to pack up our decorations, and hopefully pack up a few things for a potential move in a few years. Provided the world doesn’t come to an end before then of course.

So Lost is over. I watched the finale on Hulu today. While I wish there would have been more, I was satisfied with the ending. I really would have liked to discover more about the island and its history, but I guess the show was really more about the people who ended up there rather than the island itself. I can deal with that.

Of course, that means I’m free to make it all up on my own and use it as part of my D&D setting. My main dilemma is determining why that statue only had four toes on a foot. My previous theory was that the builders watched too much Family Guy, but I don’t think that will translate well into an RPG.

A few years ago the Central Arizona Speculative Fiction Society held a contest for armature graphic designers to produce a new logo for their organization. Mine (pictured below) was the winning entry. I didn’t get much for it, just an announcement in the next issue of Connotations and a couple of tickets into the next convention of my choice. But that’s cool, as I just wanted something I designed in print, on websites and such with credit to me for doing it.  Unfortunately at the time CASFS was kinda taking blow after blow from within and from without and was slowly falling apart, while those who really cared tried like hell to keep it all together. In the chaos no one managed to locate the paperwork I needed to sign at the same time they managed to locate me. Eventually I just sent in a number of emails (and posted elsewhere publicly) giving CASFS permission to use the logo I had created (I’d received my payment after all).

Well, after all these years, they are finally using it on their website: http://www.casfs.org/index.shtml

… I’ll actually update this blog in some sort of regular fashion.

Maybe.

As it is, I just have so much to do I don’t seem to have the time to talk about it unless you happen to be right next to me when it happens. I did sell my calculator at any rate, and I found a job. I’m not so happy with the job, but it’s money until I find something else. I’m a salesman again. The part I hate the most is that I’m good at it, but I don’t like it. It makes me feel oily and slimy like one of those swindling snake-oil salesmen of old. Figures I had to go and get fired from a job I really like right in the middle of an economic depression where there isn’t a white-collar job to be found. At least not in my town.

Right now I’m playing Space Empires IV with DeAnna and Jacob. I think Jacob’s really getting into it. He’s designed his own empire, which is modeled a bit after the Neo-Canadians which came with an expansion pack. He’s given them ice planets as a default “cuz iz code up der ya know”. DeAnna’s playing her version of the Kassan people, who are based on an alien race in Aliens Unlimited (Palladium Books). I’m playing a unique race I made up with I found a cute anime/manga pic from somewhere. So far we’re still searching the galaxy for each other, but also so far none of us are at war with anyone worth mentioning.

DeAnna and I had the opportunity to get together with a few dozen City of Heros players at Howie’s Game Shack yesterday for an official Arizona Meet ‘n’ Greet. The day was a blast! I had never been to a place like Howie’s before and actually didn’t even realize they existed. Apparently having public places where you can get and play console or PC video games is big business. There were some complications as not all the PCs were updated with the current version of the Test Servers, which is where we all wanted to play (to make it easier to play together rather than spread across several servers on the live game). This took some time to sort out but Howie’s gave those affected (maybe everybody) a free pass to return and free Monster drinks, and we took some time to get to know each other face to face before diving into the game.

The game intself had its own complications… which should have come as no surprose as we were on the test server, beta testing Issue 15. Many of us attempted the new Dr. Kahn Task Force but found we couldn’t get past the first mission. Some of us later found we could if we didn’t have a full team but I never had the chance to find out personally. I did set a new keybind for many of my characters using the “curseyou” emote (character shakes his fist in the air in frustration/anger) and the speach “KAAAAAAHHHNNN!!!” It got several laughs so I’m keeping it, especially for when Issue 15 goes live.

For the remainder of the afternoon I ended up running the Lady Gray Task Force for the first time, though also on the test servers. I had heard so much about it but never actually taken the time to get in on one. We broke for food, most of us not returning but DeAnna and I decided that since we were just going to get on the game upon returning home anyway we might as well stay and take advantage of the better graphics on Howie’s computers. We switched to the live servers and ran around with a few of our alts until we ran into some friends from the meet ‘n’ greet and ran Mission Architect arcs until we got to tired to continue.

I hope we get to do this again sometime. I don’t know if it’ll be an anual thing like HeroCon might be but I’m looking forward to it.