Its been a while since I posted anything, so I decided to slap something up today. The last week and a half or so saw the return of my insomnia- it seems to finally be over, and I'm sleeping normally once again. I still don't know what triggers it, but I can deal with it. At work, I'm daring to have the laptop out again, so I have tunes- this started just a couple days ago... And this corresponds to my starting to sleep better again as well- connection? Maybe.

My reading has continued to be voracious, and over the last week I think I've gone through something like a book and a half every night- I've about... Five? New ones left, with several more en route in the mail. I plan to either go out today or tomorrow to get a few more. Mostly its 'supernatural fiction', which is to say contemporary fantasy leaning towards horror. No, I'm not reading Twilight, and I'll prolly go to work with the eye-spoons before I EVER read that tripe. :P

I did a little cooking the other day that came out nicely too. It was simple, but good: T-Bone steaks done medium with sauteed mushrooms and red and green peppers. Migod, I had a steak WITHOUT a potato! Who'd a thunk. I'll definitely be doing it again. In other food news I've started getting Bellatoria Sausage Italia extra-thin crust frozen pizzas- these are impressively good, nearing pizzaria quality for the flavor. They're kinda spicy (which I like) and perfect to have with a cold beer.

The Sunday Gaming Group is vaguely on hiatus due to the busy-ness of summer for several of the participants, so my gaming fix is being (barely) sated by playing Dungeons & Dragons Online. Its pretty damn good, and while I have a paid account for the added goodies you can play a lot of the content for free, earning DDO points to purchase the added content bit by bit. However, it doesn't make up for the lack of tabletop role-play, and I'm looking forward with little patience to the reinstatement of gaming.

That's pretty much it for life right now, other than I got some overtime the other night, and will get some holiday pay from the Fourth- right now the plan is to get a 16-gig Ipod Nano, but that may change if I find or am recommended a good 16 gig (or bigger; especially bigger!) MP3 player. I'm mainly looking at the Ipod as all of my music is on the Macbook and I'm looking at ease-of-transfer. Recommendations will definitely be considered, especially if there's something bigger than 16 gigs available for a similar or lower price. I don't want a Classic- I want no-moving-part reliability- hard drives are more likely to get trashed by klutz-me.

On Friday at 6 PM the Mana Dragons and the affiliated Supergroups are aiming to do the Lady Grey Task Force in the Rikti War Zone! Level is 45 to 50, and we NEED eight to start! Right now there are three tentative players: Me (Playing Capriline, a L50 Willpower/Super Strength Tank), Aurora Nightshade (AKA FEY) Playing something and Ununnilum (AKA Bloop), ALSO playing something. ;)

WE NEED EIGHT. We prolly have three. PLEASE don't let us be forced to to a LGTF with a PUG!

PUG=Pick Up Group for those who don't speak acronym-ese.

Hope to see people there!

I should note a few things that I neglected to note in my post after the party- firecatmn and hubby brought cookies, which were nommed into nonexistence before we even got to the actual meal, joshuwain brought a pasta dish that I didn't have any of due to me stuffing myself with other stuff- It looked and smelled good though! It was a pasta-and-cream-sauce dish with (I think) fettuccine noodies, peas and something else. Thanks to you for bringing stuff!

As to other things, Life has been life. I've mostly managed to keep the house neat-ish so far since the party. I need to do dishes (again), and after I take the tree down (after ataramos gets home) I really ought to vacuum. What I SHOULD do is tear the damn carpet out and get new, but I'd need money for that.

I picked up Batman: The Dark Knight and Prince Caspian on my disc-swap run, though I need to try another store to replace one movie. Also, the Target I went to the other night was OUT of plain white tube socks and black work socks of the type I wanted! A run on socks! (No apology for the minor pun!)

I also used my gift certificate for the Source to get Mutants & Masterminds. I'm reading through it and learning the system- Not bad, though it IS quite a bit different from what I'm used to in a supers game. I also picked up the Wild Cards supplement for M&M. Even if I don't ever use M&M, the Wild Cards supplement is damned comprehensive.

Beyond all that, I'm at work, its my Friday and I'm looking forward to my nights off. Oh! I ordered the Mac Upgrade for City of Heroes! It was cheaper to do that to get the goodies and the month of paid time than it was to wait and buy the goodies in 2 months! Besides, I wanted the goodies. :)

Is 1:00 PM Friday. I'll get up around 10:30, and head out an hour later, thus giving me an hour to get lost and then locate the place. ;)

Actually, it should be easy. But better safe than sorry.

Then, LATE Friday night, after the Strike Force, I'll be baking cookies. Somewhere after the closing I'll get groceries, make the last payment of the current mortgage, and maybe sell my class ring.

Oh! Earlier tonight (Thursday) I went out to eat with foeclan, joshuwain and feezlekahn as a sort-of mini-celebration of the retirement of debt. :)

Weren't all that exciting. I had the meeting (this time he showed up RIGHT AT 9:30) on the refinance, and things look good for it to proceed. I need to get a bunch of things together for him to look over (W2's, last two paystubs, last two bank statements and I think one other thing), and from there he'll set up the assessment- apparently it has to happen due to new rules that have come out of the housing bust.

Other than that, Friday night was the Mana Dragons sort-of regular meet on City of Heroes/Villains. We did the Cap Au Diablo Tarikoss Strike Force; we had a total of 6 players, myself playing Wolf John (Super Strength/Invulnerability Brute). It was a lot of fun but given how rusty I was playing him I sort of felt like I was letting the others down- I died a LOT. At least 5 times. I did finally get the hang in the last two or three missions though. Wolfy is gonna get a respec, I think.

After that I Trick-Or-Treated with Capriline (Willpower/Super-Strength Tank) til I got the last of the Halloween badges, then randomly joined a team for the Citadel Task Force. It went mostly well, though the team was heavy on inexperienced players, had some drama that resulted in a player being booted from the team and had one other just randomly quit halfway through. Still, it was fun too.

Today was mostly me sleeping. I got laundry done and made a batch of chicken thighs and mashed potatoes, but I was the only one home for 'em. O well. Leftovers!

And now I'm at work. I may start writing up the Buffy run from last Sunday, and tomorrow will more than likely be... I dunno. I've some chores to do, and I need to start cleaning the house for the Halloween party on Friday- I managed to get Thursday and Sunday morning off, so I have a 4 day weekend and at least a day to get whatever's left to do, done.

So far, I'm making the turkey (14#, a little small but oh well) and mashed potatoes, and I'll get the cranberry sauce and gravy as well. foeclan is supplying a nice ham, while joshuwain is bringing some kind of beverage... I can't at the moment recall what. If you're coming and want to bring something, it'd be appreciated- if its something like chips, cheese, crackers, chips or anything that needs to be there before things get started, you can drop it off Thursday. You DON'T have to bring anything tho- but I do need to know if you are bringing stuff, so I don't go out and get it. :) I'll contact people this week too, to confirm invites and stuff. No, there weren't actual invitations- this year has been kinda tight, and I'm not as focused on things as other years.

Well, my eyes eem about the same, and I'll have two new pairs of glasses sometime before the 26th. Yay! I also have the money, or most of it, for MFF too. So things proceed apace. A little while ago I got back from dinner with joshuwain, foeclan and feezlekahn at Sarna's. Nice little place, I just had the burger and a Fat Tire (its a beer!). It was a nice meal and a nice conversation, and now I'm on City of Villains playing Endure again. She's now Level 47!

First the good- I made another beef roast tonight, this time it was 2# and I had carrots. ;) It was great, and much devouring occurred. I'm (of course) still playing City of Heroes, and I'm currently hunting down all of the Exploration and History badges in the regions up to and including Faultline. Last night I got a TON of 'em.

Now the relatively minor bad- For the last week my neck has been feeling tight, and all day today I've had a headache since I got up. Its partly neckstrain, but its mostly the weather doing a number on me. Asprin and caffeine are keeping it in check, mostly, but its definitely still there.

Next week if all goes well I'll have a five day weekend starting on the first; I really need this... And for at least some of it I'll be stringing cable-runs for the computers and claeaning. :)

So... Damn thats an addictive game. :P

Goblinn is now level 18, and I get to try and get into an area for a mission... The mission I can do. GETTING to the mission... For those who understand, I'm on the other side of the dam, and the mission is essentially inside the perimeter of the Arachnos base. To me, EVERYTHING is purple. That means, I die in seconds. :P

I THINK I can get in. Maybe. With luck. I REALLY should have taken Stealth instead of Jump Kick... O well. Of course, surviving to get in doesn't mean I'll live through LEAVING.

I'm gonna give up on my villian. Just not all that much fun to play. I might try again later, but I'm not really villain material, I suspect.

I'll get to posting pics of my characters soonish. And I WILL get the specs of the new system up soon too!