i swear we aren't dead

Couple's Cruise! To Mars!

Some millionaire is suggesting NASA send a married pair of astronauts on a roundtrip flyby of Mars 5 years from now. First off... if you're going to send people that far out, you might as well land them, otherwise it's just a Sunday drive. Sure, a Sunday drive that lasts over 2 years, but still...

But what if Rubi and I were the married couple taking this trip? Five hundred days alone together in a very small space, with no sunlight for Rubi to bask in. Our youngest daughter would only be 16 years old, and we've already traumatized her enough... leaving her at that age for almost 2 years would just be awful, or maybe as a teenager she'd love it - or we would! Who knows.

Here's how I see most of the days going on the trip: I spend most of my time reading, napping, and longing for pizza. Rubi spends most of her time reading and tweeting to her fans.

So pretty much like most days around here anyway - only without our kids, cats, jobs, etc.

We'll be married for 25 years in 2018, so it could be a second honeymoon for us. A honeymars? I'm not sure how Rubi would feel about that.

Everyone should write the company in support of me and Rubi being their honeymarsers!

Couple's Cruise! To Mars!

On being an American

My sister just wrote a great post about family and being an American.

Here's an excerpt:

We, the rank and file of Americans, are still here. We work, we live, we laugh. We Vote. We walk picket lines, we give to charity, we believe in God. We shop at local stores, we support our neighbors, we help where we can. Do not discount us. Do not forget us, or think we are worthless, for we are Americans.

On being an American

Rubi and Guild Wars

Coinkydinkly, on the same day Guys Lit Wire published my review of the Guild Wars 2 novel Ghosts of Ascalon, two interviews with Rubi hit the interwebs. Part of my wife's job is to write about the game Guild Wars.

One interview is at incgamers and kind of focuses on her new webcast: Guildcast TV which debuted last night (Thursday December 15, 2012). The other interview is at GuildMag and was just published today, but was actually done back in May of 2012.

Check `em out to learn more about what Rubi does! (And visit Guys Lit Wire!)

Rubi and Guild Wars

Need a Recommendation for a book to read?

Join me at Custom Reads. There you can search for recommendations, or make your recommendations for others to see. It's a nice way to get personalized book suggestions.

Custom Reads is a new community-based service with the goal of cutting down on the time it takes to find a new book to read. Recommendations come from real people and base suggestions for you on your member profile and feedback you give on the recommendations.

It's still in beta, and is a growing site. You could help it grow! Or you can get recommendations for yourself. Or both.

I'm not affiliated in any way with Custom Reads, beyond signing up to make recommend books. It's also another method of shameless self-promotion for Sporadic Reviews.

Need a Recommendation for a book to read?

Top Ten TV Themes

On a recent episode of the Scaper Chronicles, I mentioned that I didn't like the theme music to the Farscape TV show and that the Doctor Who theme music took awhile to grow on me. That got me to thinking: what TV show themes do I like?

Here's a list of what I'll call my Top Ten (kind of in order):

10: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
 9: Airwolf
 8: Justice League (DCAU)
 7: Battlestar Galactica (the original)
 6: Stargate Atlantis
 5: Angel
 4: Transformers Prime
 3: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Season 4 and beyond)
 2: Firefly
 1: Stargate SG-1

These are genre TV shows: science fiction, cartoons, etc; normal TV shows is another post. A note to my Browncoat friends, please don't hate me because I didn't put Firefly as Number One.

(cross-posted at SporadicReviews.com)

Top Ten TV Themes

Where Does The Time Go?

Image via WikipediaI looked at the calendar today. Did you know it's already October?! I can't believe this year is almost done and gone. One sign the year-end is getting close is the annual West Side Nut Club Fall Festival here. We're taking the kiddos out tonight for rides and junk food.

Another sign the year-end is getting close is that I start planning my vacation time for next year. The year 2012 is almost upon us and, while I don't believe the world will end on December 21, 2012 like some people think the Mayans predicted, I do believe because of that prediction others could use it to stir up trouble in a big way. I'll be planning to take that week off from work!

I'll probably have to plan some vacation time around Rubi's work trips too. I'm hoping to have a new schedule at work starting Jnauary 1st that could make having a real-life a little easier than my current schedule allows. I'll have to take that into account when planning my days off too.

One other sign the end of the year is close: I'm just about out of unscheduled time off (Vacation, Personal Days, Sick Days) at work. I could use another vacation!

Where Does The Time Go?

The Great Escape 2011

As I pulled into the driveway after taking the kids to school this morning, I saw an orange tabby cat back by our garage looking rather startled. I thought to myself that cat sure looks like Miss Kitty (our orange tabby), but there are so many strays in our neighborhood it’s not unusual to see a cat hanging around our yard. As I got out of the van, I noticed our front door was standing wide open, and our other cat, Bunny, was stooped on the porch just outside the door and her eyes were the size of dinner plates.

 

Both our cats are inside-only cats.

 

I managed to grab Bunny and toss her back in the house. When I went back out, Miss Kitty Fantastico was perched in the flower bed just outside the door. I tried to grab her, but I think she thought she was in big trouble, because she kept avoiding me. She didn’t bolt, or run, she just did that thing cats (and very young children) can do where they rearrange their bodies so you can’t grab a hold of them. She did that several times and went back around the house towards the garage.

 

I went back in and called for Rubi to come help me get her. As I went back out, Miss Kitty was in the flower bed again standing up on her hind paws looking into the window she usually spends most of her day looking out. She tried to get away again. Rubi used some ham to entice her closer to the door and I managed to grab the cat and take her in and close the door.

 

Both cats then spent several minutes freaking out and running back and forth inside the house. I don’t know what that was about. Miss Kitty must have still thought she was in trouble, because she was still avoiding me.  Eventually, they both calmed down.

 

I believe the last kid out of the house on the way to school this morning neglected to pull the door shut all the way. She shall be lectured.

 

 

The Great Escape 2011

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Today we went and saw Voyage of the Dawn Treader, since there were a bunch of little kids three rows down from us, I was afraid we weren't going to be able to hear. Surprisingly, they were quiet the whole movie. I didn't hear a peep from them. Anyways, the movie was amazing! Peter and Susan weren't really in it, except for some parts where Susan wrote a postcard, and when Lucy wished she was Susan. Peter was in that scene. It was a great movie, and I'm surprised at how good it was! Then again, all of them were. Prince Caspian was in this movie, and their cousin, Eustace. He was a brat at the beginning (Please, your fairy tales about this Narnia are rubbish, A painting moving? etc.) but in the end, he was upset because a mouse was leaving forever. And, Lucy and Edmund never get to go back to Narnia, but Eustace does. I loved the movie!

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Craft time?

Kitty naptime at the Bayer Family home and my kiddos decide to make papercrafts.

Craft time?

Then and Now: Learning

Recently, a new website I visited asked “What book did you hate in school that you now love as an adult?” Which I misread, and answered, as “What did you hate in school that you now love as an adult?”

 

When I was in school, at least in elementary and most of high school, I disliked school in-general. I didn’t want to be there, and I didn’t want to learn. I resented, among other things, that school took up so much of my day and I was forced to learn about boring things like history and math and how to diagram a sentence. That started to change when I was in high school. There, I had electives I could choose on topics that actually interested me. Yes, I still had to learn history and math, but at least I had the option of picking some classes that I might enjoy.

 

Due to a scheduling error my Junior year, I had to scramble on the first day of school to pick three elective classes, and many were already full. I didn’t have many options. I only recall one of the three classes I picked. It was Genres of Literature, and that semester was focusing on Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Yeah, I took a class where they made me read SF! Though I don’t recall what SF we actually read. I do recall we read Dracula and Frankenstein, and we got to write a short story of our own and read it in front of the class.

 

I had other classes that I enjoyed in high school: Speech, Linguistics and Semantics, some shop-type classes, and one English class had a section where some of us got to spend a week learning to speed. I think I read pretty quick, but Rubi reads even faster. And of course the Radio Broadcasting class, which lead to my major in college, and my first career.

 

Once in college, I still resented being made to take the core required classes, even though I had the choice sometimes of which classes fulfilled that requirement – which helped. In college, I focused mostly on my major. Unfortunately for me, I also kept my interests within my major very narrowly focused, instead of branching out and getting exposed to different disciplines which is what I should have been doing. Outside of my major, I took electives that interested me, some that met core requirements – Archery, Astronomy, Readers Theater, Acting, certain history classes that interested me more than others.

 

In fact, throughout my school years I pretty much hated anything to do with history. What’s odd, though, is that I really enjoyed watching educational television programs about history – such as programs on PBS, or actual distance learning programs on the local educational cable TV station. I had heard good things about one particular history professor, and found one semester he was teaching an era of history that I found interesting – so took the opportunity to take his class.  To this day, I still enjoy educational television about history, but don’t really like reading about it.

 

But some things have changed. Now, in the workplace, I jump at the chance to take any classes, seminars, and training no matter how vaguely related to my profession. Partly because I enjoy learning now, and sometimes because it gets me out of my normal duties – gives me a change of scenery, a change of pace, and a chance to learn something new.

 

And there’s very rarely any math involved.

 

 

Then and Now: Learning

Ten Things I've Done That You Might Not Have

Yeah… I totally stole the idea for this post. But hey, since it’s been forever since I posted anything real here, I thought I’d give it a shot.

 

Now, I haven’t had dinner with celebrities or played Lawn Darts with the Pope or anything like that, but here’s a list – in no particular order:

 

10: Attended a private Christian School for 9 years, through 8^th grade, then went to a public high school.

9: Been interviewed on TV numerous times throughout my life: at least a couple of times when I was in grade school, once in high school, and several times at my current job.

8: Drove a Sno-Cone Trolley for a summer job.

7: Talked on the phone to drunks, victims of domestic violence, and a suicidal person, all in the same day.

6: Stood in a room with live GB and VX nerve agents exposed to the air.

5: Frequently tell police officers where to go, and are often thanked by them for it.

4: Dropped my baby daughter on her head onto a concrete floor (by accident). She’s fine (and she’s 9 years old now). No, I didn’t do it on purpose.

3: Attended a Christian Thrash Metal concert performed by a band called One Bad Pig.

2: Had a recording of one of my phone calls played on the nightly news.

1: Married my wife. Y’all git, this one is mine. (I stole that line, but it’s a good one!)

 

You might have done some of these. If so, comment below! If not, tell me some things you’ve done that I probably haven’t – but keep it clean!

 

 

 

 

 

Ten Things I've Done That You Might Not Have

Commentary: Product Placement

The product placement in two of my favorite TV shows to watch with my wife is getting ridiculous. Both Castle and Bones, on different networks, frequently feature the main characters using Windows phones with close-ups on the phone screen and the user interface. Smallville did the Windows phone rather blatantly in one episode as well, but I haven’t noticed it as obvious lately. Bones is even worse about product placement beyond the WinPhone, with the titular character driving a Prius and extolling its virtues to her partner: it’s gas mileage and it parks itself.

 

Product placement can be integrated unobtrusively into television programs. A quick Google search shows that Glee has (or might have) product placement for shoes and pianos. I didn’t notice, because the camera didn’t linger on those items for too long, and the characters didn’t break the 4^th wall by practically reading an advertisement script about the product.

 

Other times, product placement is blatant, but I find it acceptable as an obvious sponsor of the program – such as the Coke cups the judges used on American Idol the last time I watched several seasons back. It’s bad enough broadcast television has to rely on commercial breaks to keep programs on the air, but lazy product placement too?

 

I’d write more, but I need to kick off my Nikes, pop open a Coke, and order some Dominos Pizza using my AT&T iPhone that I purchased from Best Buy.

 

 

 

--

(I don’t actually have Nikes or an iPhone…)

 

 

Commentary: Product Placement

Family

Had a nice, but way too short, visit with my youngest sister today just before I had to leave for work. She, and her two children, were in town briefly to visit my parents – both of whom have taken a turn for the worse lately.

 

My mom, almost 76, has been fighting complications from a hip replacement, among other things. Both her knee replacements went well years back, but the hip replacement a few years ago caused all kinds of problems, and she finally ended up dehydrated and in the ER, then a short hospital stay, and now is in physical therapy at a nursing home until they deem she’s capable (if ever) of going home.

 

My dad, 81, has been getting slower and slower, among other things, and when I took him out to visit my mom recently he was more unsteady than usual – almost falling over several times. Later that day my oldest sister, a nurse, thought his symptoms were reminiscent of a stroke and took him to the ER. They admitted him, discovered he needed a pacemaker and installed it the next day. Then they discovered he had indeed had a stroke and now he too will need to go stay in a nursing home for physical therapy until he’s capable (if ever) of returning home.

 

My oldest sister is trying to get them both into a facility where they can be together. Mom will have to be moved from where she’s at, but she won’t mind – she doesn’t like the place she’s at, and my dad doesn’t like it either.

 

My oldest sister is doing a phenomenal job handling these matters, as well as dealing with our grumpy father pretty much every day and making sure mom is being taken care of as well.

 

 

Family

Christmas List 2010

Christmas draws nigh and I'm sure many people are already finished with their Christmas Shopping. I'm one of those people that tends to put it off until December every year, and usually the back-half of the month.

 

This year, I've done more shopping online than in previous years. I scored a free Prime membership to Amazon, so shipping is free on just about anything I buy that Amazon ships (though not from their resellers). I'm just about finished buying for my wife - I could stop now and call it good, but I might try to pick up one or two more things for her - though I don't know what those would be just yet.

 

She and I are close to being finished shopping for our kids. We're completely finished shopping for our youngest daughter - deals for her gifts just seemed to fall into our laps this year and when we stopped to take stock of what we'd bought, we were surprised by how much stuff we had already bought... now we have to catch up on the other two kids. We do have some stuff for each of them, but we're not finished.

 

We also need to buy stuff for her parents, and maybe something else for my parents. We bought a little something for my parents, but I think I'd like to add to it.

 

As for myself, I had a mix of fun stuff and home-improvement stuff on my own gift list, in addition to all the cool stuff on my Amazon wish list. Some of the stuff on my list includes:

 

• A kindle or other ebook reader.
• Two ceiling fans for my house (to replace aging ones).
• Two storm doors for my house (to replace aging or missing ones).
• A tool chest of drawers and cabinets.
• Geeky T-shirts, including anything Firefly/Serenity.
• USB to HDMI adapter
• Wireless laptop mouse
• Saw horses.
• A 13’ extension ladder (or thereabouts)

Those are some of things I've asked for this year. And hey, if you want to help me out... ;-)

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

 

Christmas List 2010

Christmas Musical

I can't wait until the Christmas Musical!! It's going to be so much fun! It's really funny too. Speaking parts,solos, non-speaking parts and choreography. I'm kind of nervous too because I have a speaking part.We practice for the musical about two times every week. And then we start going through mistakes. I'm so glad we do this!!

Christmas Musical

Family Update

Happy Holidays!

 

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve updated here. I’ve been focusing more on sporadically posting book reviews on my other blog. 

 

Rubi is busy quickly advancing in her job, in the past year having gone from paid-per-post with a quota, to a quota raise, to a straight pay-rate, to Community Manager. She’s awesome like that.

 

Lizzy is a full-fledged teenager and off in her own little world that seems to consist of Harry Potter, manga, and Harry Potter manga. 

 

Catherine has come to the age now where we let the other kids have an email address, so we set her up with a Gmail account. We’ve added both her and Alexander to this blog as authors. We’re setting some guidelines for them so they don’t just pop in here and write a bunch of nonsense and smiley faces (again). 

 

Miss Kitty Fantastico does not have her own email address, nor will she be writing on this blog any time soon.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Family Update

Gen Con 2010

I finally made it to my very first Gen Con this year! I only attended on Saturday, but I had a blast and hope to be able to attend more than one day in the future.

Gen Con is a staple of table-top gaming conventions; I’d say it’s the king. It seems like there’s never been a time I haven’t known of it. It moved to Indianapolis in 2003, which is close enough to me that I could at least make a day trip for one day. But for some reason I never managed to get around to it. This year, since my wife writes about computer games and I review books, we decided to try to make the trip. I could only get one day off from my day job though, so Saturday we got up at three o’clock in the morning and drove to Indy.

Our first stop was to meet some of Rubi’s coworkers for breakfast away from the con – next time we go, we’re doing the Tracy Hickman Breakfast. I’ve been hearing for years that it’s awesome, but since we only had one day this year, we had to scant time to do much. After breakfast, we drove into Indy proper and hit the convention center. Once checked-in, we flipped through the program to decide what to do.

While planning, we ran into a great cosplayer dressed as Darth Vader. A costumed violin player quickly set up near him while there was a crowd around and started playing the Star Wars theme, then transitioned into the Imperial March. That was a thing of beauty – impeccable timing and great talent! I really enjoy seeing all the costumes at cons.

Our first stop was the exhibition hall. We could have spent days in the exhibition hall. Especially with unlimited funding! I found so many things I wanted to purchase for myself, and for my family. One thing for future trips: we need to demo more games while in the exhibition hall.

As we were walking through the exhibition hall, Rubi found the line to see the cast of The Guild. I think the line stretched to Gary, Indiana and back. Rubi was crazy about speaking with Felicia Day in-person since she got to interview her for Massively Speaking, and she wasn’t able to swing an in-person interview during Gen Con for some reason. She opted to catch the after-lunch line instead of the current one.

We eventually made it to the Asmadi Games booth, where we had planned on replacing our missing We Didn’t Play Test This At All card game that we bought at PAXEast. However, they had a combo-deal that was too good to pass up – we got the card game, plus all its expansion decks, and the game Win, Lose, Banana! This purchase made the entire family happy. We also demo’d WDPTTAL, so we all got Cake! (That’s a card similar to the Banana card, only with Cake featured instead.)

By this time, we needed lunch. I’m cheap, so we hit the mall food court. After foodage, we headed back to the exhibition hall to make our round-about way to the line to see Felicia Day. Our first stop though was the art show. I was so impressed by the talent on display there. I see fantasy and science fiction art frequently and I know someone has to create that, but seeing the art right there on canvas with the artist sitting in front of it really brought that home for me. I saw more than one tip jar in the various art booths as well, to feed “starving artists”. They deserve every penny.

Authors’ Row was next to the art exhibit, so of course I had to stop and see if anything interested me. (Note to self: don’t do this anymore unless you plan on taking more money with you, or blatantly asking for review copies.) I did find several interesting books and Rubi talked me into buying one that sounded interesting to all of us. I traded business cards with another author, who upon reading my card, asked if I wanted a review copy. Of course I do! But only if the author is okay with giving me one. This author had a very nice hard-back ARC of his novel that had been autographed to another fan. The book had a small ding on the spine and the fan didn’t like that. Also, that fan had a very unusual name so the author couldn’t “recycle” the book for another fan with the same name. I happily took that copy and will be reviewing it soon. A few booths away was the artist who did the cover art for that book. His signature now adorns the cover of my review copy.

As we were wandering through the art exhibit, Rubi noticed a sign declaring an artist that did concept art for her favorite MMO would be there later. Later being while she was in-line to see Felicia Day. We walked her down to the line, where she’d have to wait for an hour or more, and returned to the art and author exhibit to finish our browsing and make finalize our purchases. Then went over and chatted with the artist for a bit. Rubi’s co-worker Justin asked some great questions and the artist was nice enough to provide some great answers.

A fun part of this trip was bringing our oldest daughter, Lizzy, with us to Gen Con. She’s been itching to go to a con, loves seeing the cosplayers, and wanted to pick up some con swag if possible. While Rubi was in line, I took our daughter around and she managed to get some fun buttons and some kind of plushy manga character. Rubi’s coworker Justin, hung out with us most of day too. That was a blast. I wish we had had more time to hang out with him and his family. While taking Lizzy around, Rubi called me to let me know she was almost at the front of the line and I needed to come take pictures. I sent Lizzy off to see the costume parade and visit the manga library while I met back up with Rubi and took pictures of her with the cast of The Guild.

After that, we decided, since it’s a gaming con, we had to at least try one game. We visited the Rio Grande Games room where Justin introduced to Dominion, which we must soon purchase. We enjoyed playing Dominion. We really should do more actual gaming next time we do Gen Con. While Rubi, Justin, and I played the game, Lizzy made it back to us and hung out for a few minutes, then went back to the exhibition hall to take some video on her phone.

I honestly don’t remember exactly what we did next. But eventually we ended up sitting on the floor near a pillar and playing We Didn’t Play Test This At All until Justin had to leave to meet back up with his family for their trip home.

After a quick dinner, in the mall again (next time, we must feast at the Red Dragon Inn), we got in line for our final event of the evening: The Guild panel. That was very fun, and Lizzy decided she needed to start watching The Guild. After the panel, we made our three hour drive back home and were in bed by midnight.

Long day, but well worth it. We all had a blast and now we’re jonesing for the next con we can go to as a family. Rubi’s heading out to PAX in September, but I won’t be able to go with her this time. I’m look for some inexpensive, closer to home, smaller cons that maybe we can do. We’ve already missed InConJunction this year, but there’s ConGlomeration a ways off around Easter next year.

Thanks to Gen Con for providing Sporadic Reviews with a media pass. I’ll get my reviews of the books I acquired at the con posted as soon as I can.

Yes, my wife took that picture. We walked by, and I said "Hey, I should get my picture taken with them!" in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge voice. Rubi answered "Don't think I won't take that picture, get over there!"

Gen Con 2010

Wha-huh? Summer endeth.

Since when did summer end in the middle of August?! 

The kids go back to school Wednesday! Monday night is Back-to-School night for the kiddos. They get to go meet their new teachers, learn the classroom rules, the parents get to fill out reams of paperwork and volunteer for activities during the school year.

 

I like having leisurely mornings with my kids during the summer, but I’ll be glad for them to get back to a more structured environment. Rubi and I are easy on them.  Plus when they’re in school, Rubi and I get a little more free time to ourselves without worrying about leaving alone at home. We’ll start having weekly-ish dates again away from home, maybe find some time to make a podcast together.

 

And our gas budget will sky-rocket again. Driving to and fro: taking the kids to and from school daily, to sports practices and events, extra trips to school to pick up Lizzy from after-school clubs, etc.  We maybe fill the van twice a month during the summer.  During the school year, we probably fill the van at least once a week. 

 

Back to school time! Whee!

 

 

 

 

Wha-huh? Summer endeth.

Whee! Bring on the hectic!

Rubi blogs again. I think this is becoming an almost daily thing for her! Awesome!

 

 

Sent to you by Kev via Google Reader:

 

 

Whee! Bring on the hectic!

via Moms Want To Play Too by Rubi on 8/6/10

Wow, last night was kinda crazy and I loved every second of it.

See, Thursday night is Massively night in Guild Wars. I get together with our readers and we play through Guild Wars together. We started with Prophecies in pre-searing and are working our way through. In the past few weeks we've thrown Eye of the North into the mix, proceeding through those storylines to add some interest.

Last night was Bloodstone Fen and part of the Knowledgeable Asura storyline. After getting my kiddos to bed for the night, I headed to Bloodstone Fen early as usual to help everyone get settled in. Fielded a few guild invitation requests, chatted with guildies and alliance mates, and wrapped up a few work things. Besides the usual contingent of guildies, some alliance people joined, and an old friend from the original Guildcast alliance showed up.

At the appointed time, we divided up into groups -- we've always got too many for a single group -- and off we went. And then all heck broke loose. One guy's mic wasn't working on Vent, and someone else was having volume issues that caused every person's voice to come booming out of her speakers. Then someone else had a minor medical issue that required her to afk and re-apply a bandage/brace.

We stood around at the beginning of the mission for quite a while trying to get everything sorted. This is exactly the sort of thing that causes more impatient players to throw their hands up in annoyance and rely on heroes. But here's the thing: I revel in it. Sure, we weren't accomplishing the mission at top speed, but I was with five people that I *really* like. We were laughing, joking around, helping one another sort out technical glitches, and generally having time.

Now. I haven't even gotten to the fun part yet. We finally got settled and started the mission in earnest. We got about a third of the way through when I got an IM from my husband, who'd been web browsing during some downtime at work. There was a new ArenaNet blog post about Guild Wars 2.

Now here's the thing about Guild Wars 2 news: It's...well, it's Guild Wars 2 news. I jump on it and write it up immediately, and it usually gets published asap. Other stuff, particularly gaming, has to take a back seat. Now I want to be very clear that this is not a complaint. Not a day goes by that I don't smile at *some* point because of what I do for a living. I'm the lead Guild Wars/Guild Wars 2 writer for our site. I *get paid* to write about this game that introduced me to MMOs. I *get paid* to do something that I am incredibly passionate about and that I'd do for free.

So when this sort of thing happens, I have this crazy combination of "/shriek New info, new info!!!" and "OMG MUST WRITE NOW." My fangirl self and my work self are both hopped up on adrenaline and excitement and my biggest problem is trying to stay under a certain word count.

What's funny is that the very same thing happened last Thursday night. New GW2 info surfaced just as our Massively GW mission was well underway. I told my group what was happening, and they sent me off to a safe place to leech while I wrote. They were so kind about it.

I felt too guilty to do that again this week, so I explained on Vent what had happened and that I needed just a moment to talk with Shawn and figure out how long the story was going to be. Once I got that settled, we finished the mission in record time and everyone shooed me off to get to work.

I am so, so, so fortunate to have gameplay friends who "get it." Things like this interrupt their gameplay, and in their shoes I might be a bit impatient. They are saints about it. Partly because they are great people, but partly because this sort of thing is incredibly exciting for them too and they completely get why I'm so preoccupied and anxious to get to work.

My gamer friends are the best. <3 And keep the hectic coming, everyone involved. I love it so much!

 

 

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• Subscribe to Moms Want To Play Too using Google Reader
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Whee! Bring on the hectic!