Act VII, Scene 10- Interior, Hospital Laboratory, Evening

**I am allowing myself to get waaaay too sidetracked watching episodes of Rescue Me. Curse you, o Pirate Queen, for visiting this fascinating plague upon me!! And be ye doubly cursed for knowing that I would get that theme song stuck in my head!

**Even though the HeroScape map I have laid out is over 4' wide, I just don't seem to be getting the sense of scale I thought I would. Another question that arises is that if a human, or humanoid, is considered to be medium sized, what gets figured as small? And just how the hell do you straighten a warped harquebus?

**It was so nice to hear from BlueGirl yesterday! And just as nice to know that the blue was still in use!

**I still have no idea what to get Cromag, nor have I figured out how to get urine out of hooker boots.

**Even though I have delayed my move for weeks and weeks, I can still only see defeat ahead of me on the chess board.

**Is the movie Napoleon Dynamite something you really need to see in ultra-mega-hi-definition?

**Got Big B kinda sorta in line for Monday, haven't heard from Trotzke, and if needed I could probably grab Grey-San. But, if I do end up out at IKEA (again...), that could make for an almost uncomfortably full day. Still, the terrain is all laid out, and there are so many colorful dice that need to be bounced...

**It looks like I am going to have just tons of butterfly weed seeds this year.

**Off to Vegas for H'ween?? Boy, does that sound tempting...

**I think I know what to get Pinklady for her B-day.

**My theory is that if there is a detail of some sort there, it is meant to draw your attention and make you look, and therefore looking is a non-slappable event.

**As nice as it looks, I am going to have to replace the light that is currently over the game table with something that's got a lot more oomph.

**Anyone interested in a box full of books and other stuff all about Wicca?

**Giant Cheetos!?!?! Is this really something the world needed??

Coarse Red Eggs

**Six days of vacation went by in a cool, wet, gray blur. Got a few things done that had needed to get done for a long time, and didn't get some other things done that I had thought I would. The whole span of time was completely non-remarkable on just about any level you care to evaluate it on. The weather was no where near what I had expected for mid to late summer, and it ended up raining quite a bit which was quite disappointing. I also don't know if I was sick for part of the time or not, but I just didn't feel well. That basically put a cap on the whole week that left me halfway under either an illness or a depressive episode. Knowing that a large contingent of the extended family was showing up at the end of the week probably didn't help matters any. That mess lead into a couple of run-ins with the SIL, and a re-ignition of a long smouldering debate/fight/issue between Pinklady and I. Just not the greatest time away from work that I've ever spent. If my vacation around H'ween goes this well, I may just give up the notion of ever taking another vacation.

**Somehow I think I may have just landed on another person's 'project' list.

**I may have just taken the edge off of my HeroScape jones for a while. While waiting for our order from Yen Ching to get done on Sunday, I skipped across Lincoln Highway to check and see what was going on over at the game store. I hadn't heard if the sale of the store had gone through or not, plus I had been wanting to go all week and just hadn't dragged my ass over there. The place was a near disaster area inside. There is a decent amount of rearranging going on and overall stock levels were low. The good news was that the sale had indeed gone through, so the store will be staying open. But, from here on out it will be called New Game In Town. Not sure I like the name, but oh, well. After a quick scan of the inventory and a brief chat with the clerk, I managed to find out that not only did they have no HeroScape in stock, the new owners had no intention of carrying it at all. Of course, if I wanted to special order it, they'd be glad to do that for me. So, I was a tad disappointed as I scooted back across the street to collect my dumplings and hot and sour soup so I could head for home. Strangely enough, when I logged on to the 'net right before heading to bed, there was a notice posted in the game store's Forum about the sale of the store and the transition to the new owners. Also posted were several lists in the Garage Sale area of things that the old owners still had and were trying to get rid of. Among them, a bunch of HeroScape stuff. Better yet, it was 20% off HeroScape stuff. Oh, goody! I immediately fired off a reply laying claim to the whole mess. That was Sunday night. Monday morning found me coming back from the other side of DeKalb with all that stuff in the back of my car. Amidst the HeroScape stuff I also bought a copy of the Special Ops rules for the latest edition of Battletech. That makes it official: I could now play Battletech until 7.865 years past my date of death and still not make use of all the things I own for that particular system. The same most likely goes for the HeroScape stuff too, but I'm trying not to think about that right now.

**Could it be that I've outgrown my seasonal allergies??

**When driving down the road at high speed, it is most unpleasant for a rather large yellowjacket to bounce off the open window frame and land in your lap stunned but not dead.

**I have reregistered as an E-Bay user. That fills me with a slight sense of dread, knowing my tendency to spend randomly. Having not gone so far as to set up a Pay Pal account, I do feel a bit better, but still, there's just so much cool stuff and I have only so much willpower. A notable exception happened when I searched for a copy of Renegade Legion: Centurion. The one and only copy available on the whole damn site is in England, of all the freakin places. What's up with that??

**On the recommendation of the Pirate Queen, I have rented part of, watched part of, and become interested in the entire series of Rescue Me. Plus, I really just just like Denis Leary.

**Who knew you could come up with such an interesting idea for using brownies?

**For all the things that didn't go as planned or hoped this past week, at least I hopefully instigated some contacts that could end up proving to be fruitful.

**The chaise went on it's merry way this week, but there is still a monstrous pile of stuff squatting in the center of the garage that needs to be dealt with.

**

Lingering Noxious Kitten Hormones

**I have a vacation slated to begin on Tuesday and at the moment, I have no sense of upcoming joy or freedom. That kinda sucks. No, that REALLY sucks. Or maybe it REALLY really sucks. I haven't decided yet.

**It is a rarity that uncontrollable quivering is a good thing, but it does end up that way on occasion.

**Trying to keep a headache at bay with overly large cups of coffee. So far that tactic has resulted in a Mexican standoff. This is the kind of battle will add considerable length to a workday that is already moving pretty damn slowly.

**Kosher Dill Pickle Krunchers: way too damn good!! (side note-just avoid milk after eating them...)

**Been raining on and off today, so hopefully that will make some of the yard cleanup I have to do a bit easier. And Yay! for new windshield wipers! (For those of you keeping track, that is yet another sign that I am aging at the speed of light-excitement over new wipers)

**On the flip side of the aging coin is me trying to decide how much more money, if any, I should put into my HeroScape pre-addiction. Rather than listen to any realistic adult opinions (they'd just suck anyway), I have decided to pose the question to my fellow gamers on Boargamegeek. I can't wait to see what kind of responses I get.

**Speaking of responses, no one has yet risen to the bait statement I put out there on Facebook yesterday. Guess it wasn't worded offensively enough.

**Since I haven't adequately developed my bike riding habit this year, it's looking more and more like I need to start plodding along on the treadmill before too much longer. Either that or I need to get back into the pool at the Y. It's really hard to watch a movie while I'm in the pool, but it's far less stressful on my knees. Maybe I'll just get an Ab-Rocker instead.

**A lovely book of Shakespearean sonnets has been added to my library. I'm especially fond of the Pooh stamp.

**Time for me to start going back to school? Maybe. Why should I not get started on that art degree?

**Fucking Japanese beetles are eating the shit out of my morning glories. I am so not happy about that.

**

White Paper Mice

**I am thinking that one of the things that you'd need in order to start a successful club/organization would be a cool name. More importantly, I think you'd need people who were interested in joining, but a cool name would be helpful in that area. Irregardless, game night will be next Sunday, the 23rd of August, and will start at 7PM and run till whenever. I want to get Gemlok to the table but Big Bri wants to drag out his unused copy of Zathura. Which reminds me that I need to get a hold of Trotz and see if he's available. Any other takers?

**Since we are teetering on the edge of becoming a Communist nation (you did know this, right?) I figured now would be as good a time as any to start kicking some dust on Facebook. I can't wait to see what kind of reactions I get. Time to go piss off the narrow-minded. What fun!

**A guy from the Dept of Public Works was out scratching around at the end of my driveway Tuesday morning. They had already come by and marked the sidewalk in the space where it needed to be fixed, so I was curious as to why this guy was there. I went out and talked to him, and he was there to mark out the exact area that was to be replaced. Half joking, I asked him if they were going to replace the little corner of the driveway adjacent to the sidewalk that has been steadily sinking over the past few years. I was pleasantly surprised when he said yes they would. I really hadn't thought they'd replace anything that wasn't part of the sidewalk proper. So there you go, a free repair courtesy of the city of DeKalb that should hopefully keep me from having to replace the rest of my driveway for another few years.

**The upstairs carpets are finally clean, after two years of debating as to when or if we would have it done. Hasn't rained since then, so there has been a wonderful lack of muddy paw prints. Ah, the wonders of a somewhat clean house....

**The parking lots here at the hospital are all being resurfaced, and it just so happens that the wind is blowing in just the right direction today to cause the airborne essences of tar and asphalt to be sucked into the air intakes and piped down into the lab. Just lovely. As if I needed something else to cause me a headache while I'm here.

**The NIU student invasion starts next week. While I intend to avoid the southwest corner of town, I may just have to go hang out in the newly redone quad and do some people watching.

**Go figure that I should get a very interesting offer from Jeweltiger, only to have it rescinded the very same day.

**It may sound like an ego trip on my part, but I really am starting to become amazed at the amount of tiki stuff in my collection. There is literally box after box after box of the stuff. Go through one, and I find another two or three right behind it. It's like that warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark; it just keeps going and going and going. That's just what ends up happening when you've been collecting the something for 5+ years, I guess. While going through all this stuff and trying to remember where it came from, and under what circumstances, I find I have developed quite a yen to head back up to Trader Vic's in Chicago. Be nice to just sit and soak up some concentrated tiki vibes for an evening. Plus, if I were to catch a glimpse of a certain Polynesian goddess while I was there, I sure wouldn't complain. I would flirt shamelessly, but wouldn't complain a bit. Anyway, the recording of the collection has fallen into a bit of a routine: take about 100 pictures, glean them down to less than 50, crop them all, upload them and then attach comments as necessary. It's quite a bit more time consuming than I had thought it would be. The misguided notion that I may have a chance to get most of the stuff photographed over my time off is rapidly being nibbled away by all the other things I intend to do during my time off. Most likely, just about none of it will end up getting done, but I do plan to take some rather spectacular naps.

**Got my fingers crossed hoping for a most awesome Sunday morning.

**Rented "The Great Buck Howard" and watched it Friday night. Kind of odd watching John Malkovich channel a calm Lewis Black. It's also freaky to see the resemblance between Tom Hanks and his son Colin. The movie itself is an interesting look at a mentalist (not a magician) whose act is still stuck in the 60's-70's and the brief interaction between him (John Malkovich) and a law school drop-out (Colin Hanks) who he hires to be his road manager.

**After a recent trip to Michael's, I feel the need to revisit my holiday rant. OK, summer vacation is still going on and the corn is still green and growing, and yet the Halloween stuff is out already. That I find disappointing. No, actually I find that to be very destructive to a season i quite enjoy. Fall is great in my book. Speaking in general for those of us who tend to live along this latitude, Halloween is part of fall. Here fall entails certain climactic and vegetative changes that cause one to be aware of an upcoming seasonal change. None of those events have occurred, so, in my book Halloween is nowhere on the horizon. Unless I happen to go into any store on the planet. Then it becomes pretty hard to miss. Once I accept that there is really nothing I can do to change the mindset of retailers, then I become disappointed by the low quantity and quality of Halloween items that are available. Irregardless, I suppose I'll just be setting some kind of record for starting my Halloween shopping early this year.

**Even after a brief explanation of how Tit Time works, I find myself no closer to a birthday gift idea for Cromag.

**Bracing for another family based invasion next week. Hoping they will just chat themselves silly and not even notice that I'm not there. If that doesn't do it, the smell of new baby should be sufficiently distracting for me to be able to enjoy my time off.

**Cornfest?? Anybody really care? Nah....didn't think so.

**I need to go get one of of the Pirate Queen's recumbent bikes to try for the week.

**

Opinions of Greasy Daisies

**If you're in the mood for a amusing movie, may I suggest "Bart Got A Room". It's a somewhat predictable comedy revolving around the attempts of a slightly geeky Jewish teen's efforts to get a date for the senior prom. If nothing else, it's well worth the cost of the rental to see the hairdo sported by William H Macy throughout the entire movie.

**When will I learn to stay out of the game store? The answer would seem to be fairly obvious in the face of needing to ask the question at all. But, given my overall weakness for brightly colored bits in cardboard boxes, it wasn't unusual for me to be walking out of Woodfield Mall Sunday afternoon minus a Benjamin and plus a couple of new games. While looking at, but avoiding purchasing any HeroScape add-ons, I did get my mitts on a copy of Galaxy Trucker that wound up coming home with me. And in a nod to the less avid gamers that I run across, I let Sheri talk me into getting a copy of CatchPhrase.

**OK, lest I forget yet again, when going to IKEA, it is of utmost importance to have ALL the measurements you could ever possibly need WITH you. Otherwise, you're taking a long drive to spend a few hours in a insanely crowded store just to leave with a few flyers (plirnost) and a rather prominent headache (skaaarojgren). As an example of things to avoid, when looking for cabinets in which to store/conceal board games, it is best to know the dimensions of said board games (muur). As another example, it is fairly important to know (bjork) the actual measured height of the room, unless you're interested in cutting holes in the ceiling (niaar) to make things fit when upright (klurst).

**Another sure sign that your wild days are well behind you: Being excited over getting a new vacuum cleaner. Even if it is a bright and shiny red one that makes the dust bunnies tremble in fear.

**My general thought has become that if contractors are that freakin squeamish about putting in skylights, I should seriously consider if this project should move forward.

**Once more my car will be subjected to the mechanical manipulations of Motor Works, leaving me without a ride for my day off. Guess I can just sit and watch the carpets dry.

**And what do you get a man for his birthday who couldn't return your call because he was busy getting tits shook in his face?? (Would that be shaken?) (Would those be boobs?)

**Brown string, red string, why not no string for a change?

**Michael Jackson was both incredibly talented and incredibly freakish. Now, he is merely incredibly dead. It happens. Get over it.

**

Glyphs of Neon Cheese

**I have no idea why coffee hasn't been declared it's own separate and magical food group yet.

**It was a struggle to keep the bike moving today. It was like my legs were made out of lead. Or maybe polonium. Not sure, but whichever it was they were made of, it was inert and heavy. And it was such a nice day to be out. I mean, there was a breeze, but nothing out of the ordinary. So, apparently my body had no intent to do any kind of exercise today. Had I known that before I got out on the trail, I could have stayed home and watched reruns of Fraiser.

**The weekend schedule has already filled itself, and mostly with things I have no real interest in. Got a late a late night scheduled at work on Friday, so I won't be leaving there till 3 AM or so. That means that I should hopefully be out of bed and moving by noon, but you never know. The friend of Sheri's who cuts our hair is due to be coming by around 1:30, and I'm hoping she takes the love seat with her when she leaves. Then I may just have time to squeeze in a nap before we're due to go over and have dinner with the people we dogsat for the other weekend. That pretty much does away with Saturday. Sunday is supposed to be one of the hottest days of the year so far, if you care to believe such things. There is also a flea market at Elkhorn, which Sheri has expressed little to no interest in going to. The most recent objection was that it was going to be quite hot. While I wouldn't mind going, I'm still way behind in my normal 'to do' list around the house. So, reasonably, I should focus my efforts a bit more locally. If I don't go, Trader Vic himself will be there giving away all his personal memorabilia. If I do go, I could very well scratch around al day and find next to nothing. Given the large and darkly looming shadow that is her PMS, I think we'll stay closer to home. The flip side of that is that IKEA is apparently within the acceptable distance range of places to go. Must have something to do with localized distortions of the space-time continuum. Therefore, I will be cabinet shopping, or so it appears, on Sunday. For some reason, Sheri has been expressing interest in containing and confining my game collection. That is a path that leads us to the land of DIY furniture. And once that's done, I think I may be left with a bit of a sliver of Sunday night to do with as I please.

**Not only have I been relieved of my Farkle crown, I am teetering on the edge of yet another defeat at the chess board- and both at the hands of the same person. I'm thinking it may be time to switch back to Battletech...

**

Murky Hamster Prognostications

**Watched a trailer for the new GI Joe movie on Yahoo!. My eyes are still burning. I sense some major suckage brewing as far as that one goes. But whilst I was perusing the various films that are coming out and trying to keep my breakfast down as I did, I ran across a trailer for "Tron Legacy". Yup, you heard me right. A sequel to a movie that came out in, what, '82 or '83? I can't remember exactly, and if I wasn't so totally lazy, I'd Google it to find out. OK, out of sheer shame for that previous statement, a few clicks of the mouse have informed me that it was indeed 1982 that it came out. While this does nothing but prove my point that Hollywood has completely run out of any new ideas, at the same time I find myself interested. At the time, Tron was the coolest thing ever. And I do mean ever. Even more so than Star Wars, at least on a computer graphics level. So I think I may file that away in my 'Must Rent' category for now, since I have 0 expectation that I would be able to drag Pinklady out to see it. "Inglorius Basterds" looks interesting. So does "District 9". Another one that's going to go on my list is the indie film "I Sell The Dead". Beyond that, I doubt you'll see me haunting the halls of the local theaters. Oh, I have to include one more movie related rant while I'm on the topic. Whoever came up with the genius idea of doing a prequel to Alien should be stuffed in a bag with George Lucas and severely pummelled. The first movie was a gem of sci-fi horror. The second was OK, but showed some signs of wearing the premise thin. Any of the other movies I refuse to acknowledge. I don't care if Ridley Scott is coming back to direct it, IT SHOULDN'T BE MADE!! Why couldn't they just leave a good story alone? What's next-a Dukes of Hazzard prequel? Maybe a Ghostbusters prequel?? Why not a Cannonball Run prequel??? These people need to be stopped!! Again, I blame George Lucas for being the father of all this nonsense! Great...Now I have a headache. Wanna guess what the prequel to that was?

**

Mmmmmm.....Modularity....

**Sure it's cool. If it wasn't cool, it wouldn't sell right? But coolness shouldn't be the sole thing that convinces me to buy something; I know better. Right? I hoped so, but it seems I may be suffering a tiny, tiny addiction to HeroScape. I have to admit being fascinated by the concept of the modular game board since I first played Survive! way back in the day (what am I saying?? I still play Survive!). Gammarauders did a variation on the modular board theme as well. Yet neither of them, nor any of the others that may have experimented with this concept, have done it quite in this manner. HeroScape is such pure eye candy that I can hardly stand it. Being one who never had the patience to learn how to paint miniatures for any other game, I am amazed by the level of detail in the figurines for this game. I probably shouldn't use the word 'miniature' since the dragon that come with the base game has got to be about 4-5" tall at the wing tips. The plates that you use to create the game board come in sizes from a single hex to 24 hexes, with each hex being maybe 1.5" across. These plates are made of a hard molded plastic and are shaped in such a way that they stack and interlock quite securely, enabling you to make 3D terrains that are only limited by how many plates you own (one way they get you to spend more money). Just setting up the terrain for one of the basic game scenarios has occupied just over half of my 6' dining room table. But, boy, does it look purty! So one of the hooks is getting you to want to buy more terrain plates to make bigger, badder, and more expansive game maps. The other is the nice quality figurines, which I have already mentioned. The base game I bought comes with 30 of these figurines, which represent everything from dragons to samurai to airborne rangers. Now, the rules to the game are simple. The basic rules, if printed without pictures and examples, would take up a front and back of one sheet of paper in my guess. A very, very simple rule set. The difference comes in when you step up to the Master Rules. Then thing get a bit more complicated. But not much, in my opinion. I've seen rule sets that were far more convoluted than these. Anyway, when you change over to the Master rules, the hook factor of the figurines comes into play. At the basic level, the figurines are far more equal. Each has a set of stats that tell you how far they can move in a turn, at what range the can attack, how many dice they roll to attack, and how many dice they roll to defend. At the Master level, each separate unit has a special power of some sort, and some have more than one. It's this addition of these special powers that make the game more flavorful and complex. The rather simple rule structure is necessary to allow for the addition of all these extras. The hook is that you can buy more units with new and different powers to add into the game as you see fit. That makes it customizable. Which is game-speak for "potentially expensive". Still, there's something about this particular game that has captured my interest, if only for the moment. I'm hoping that if Cromag ever comes up again, I can substitute this, at the basic level, for our usual Dungeon! sessions. And if I get back in touch with Trotz, we could play it at the Master level. I have yet to check and see how compatible it would be to use the terrains for Battletech layouts, but I think the scaling may be off by a bit. So, there you go. Yet another interest I have developed that has the potential to become a huge money sink. *SIGH* But hey, who's up for a game?!

Cabbage and Gumdrops

**I think I would consider today's flea market journey a success. The tiki gods were indifferent to my pleas, except in the area of weather. It was an un-be-fucking-lieveablely gorgeous day to be out tromping around. Saw some lovely pin-up art, but my limited funds kept me on the trail of tiki stuff. I think the grand total of viewed tiki items was 4-8, depending on how you would decide to classify such things. I wound up coming home with 3 of them. Found an nice Orchids of Hawaii tiki glass with both its original green crystal eyes intact. Didn't sound quite right when I gave it the flick test, but I couldn't see any apparent cracks, so I bought it. Scott was doing a 'clean-out-the-closet-sale', so the tiki percentage in his booth was pretty darn low. Did manage to find the pepper shaker to go along with the toothpick holder that Big B gave me, along with a smallish ashtray (?) made by Treasure Craft. Picked up an older card game from Scott too, mostly because the card were still wrapped in their original plastic. What I failed to realize was that there were supposed to be several plastic hands in the box, which weren't in there (The game is a variant of Spoons). So I figured I could just substitute poker chips or something similar. I may also post a wanted notice on boargamegeek, just in case someone has some they wouldn't mind parting with. I also found a copy of Stop Thief, which was one of my favorite board games back in the 80's (I was so jealous that Darren Pettyjohn had a copy and I didn't). The only downside was that the instructions were missing. I figured I should be able to get those off the 'net with no trouble. All I have to do is make sure the electronic Crime Computer works, and I should be quite the happy camper. In that same booth, there was a copy of the base set for Heroscape. This was another game that looked cool to me, but I have been avoiding because of it's collectible/customizable nature. I asked the guy whose booth it was to give me a deal, and I got Heroscape along with the copy of Stop Thief for $25, which was a good deal to me (and much less than the tag price of $48 for the two). Of course the big blue IKEA tote bag was MIA this morning, so I was left to lug two massive board game boxes through the last 1/4 of the flea market. That made my wrist feel just soooo good. When I got home I found out that the copy of Heroscape may have been opened once, but looked as if it had seen no play time. Double bonus! I think a trip to the game store may be in order tomorrow to see how much $$ the expansion packs go for. I'm also interested in seeing how easily the terrain sets can be used for Battletech. But after scarfing down a quick lunch, briefly oohing and aahing over my new treasures, and taking a less than satisfying 1/2 hour nap, it was off to work. Had to leave the beautiful day behind and descend into the pit. So not fair.

**A rainy Monday is what the forecasters say is in store for me. Fine. Whatever. Just have stinking paperwork to do anyway...

**Pinklady's state of agitated rearranging has started to spread into areas that do not overly concern her. The pissy part is that she made a suggestion that covered something I was already considering doing. That means a trip to IKEA is somewhere in the future. Smell that? It's the sound of a soon-to-be-overheated credit card...

**It was good to see David today, even though neither one of us is quite sure exactly how many times he's been married.

**I better not get my hands on the IS geek who's been hacking away at my access level...

**OK, the recipe said to bake the stuffed mushrooms until the bread crumbs on top were golden brown. The problem was that the bread crumbs started off golden brown. How much more goldener browner could they get? What mystical level of golden brownness was I supposed to wait for?? Next time I'm just heating a pizza.

**New favorite breakfast food: toast with peanut butter studded with blueberries! Shame there was no bacon in the house...

**Have you checked out yogabeans.com yet?? I swear I was laughing so hard, but having to hold it in because I was at work that I thought my spleen was going to detonate and come shooting out of my belly button! I find I must most humbly bow at the feet of a comedy master!!

**NO NO NO NO NO!!!! IT IS TOO FUCKING EARLY FOR HALLOWEEN STUFF TO BE OUT!!!!

**

Quite Possibly The Funniest Thing EVER!

http://www.yogabeans.com/2008/09/dandasana.html

Crayon Munching Spider Goats

**Off to Kane Co flea market on Sunday. Will the tiki gods be more kind to me this time around? I can only hope. I mean, it's not like there's a huge number of volcanoes in IL. Find one of those, then you'd have to find a virgin to throw into it. Those are even harder to come by than the volcanoes. And why waste a perfectly good virgin? So, since directly appeasing the tiki gods may not be an option, I'm just gonna keep my fingers crossed that Scott has some goodies for me. But since Scott wasn't at the last Sandwich flea market, I may end up being stuck hoping that he's even there. It will be interesting seeing how this show plays out. Not only do I have to be to work by 2, a cousin-in-law will be joining us, and he has a lunch appointment in DeKalb at 1230. That means we may be slogging out of bed around 6AM or so to get out there. Not to mention that we're still supposed to be watching the neighbors dog. May just have to do a fast dash to cover the whole thing, depending on how many dealers are there. Don't know if the rain today will have any impact on that or not. I'll be looking for a cookie jar, a tea cup, and something for Cromag, along with my usual wish list.

**What?? Dimples aged another year?? Say it isn't so!! And if fear of deer keeps you from going out, well, let's just say you're getting up there...

**OK, if it takes two days to clean up afterwards-that was a GOOD party!! My guess is the next one will take even longer to clean up after. A tip of the turban to Jeweltiger on her party hosting prowess!

**Hit a slow patch in my efforts to catalog the tiki collection. No real reason, just seem to have been an off week for me. I've cleared a whole 2 boxes for a grand total of 24 pieces thus far-not a real impressive total. I'm beginning to realize that this process could end up being far more time consuming than I had thought. I've already discovered that parts of the collection have drifted far beyond the intended area of containment. Tikis that were supposed to be contained to the basement have begun to appear in the office as well as the living room. I have NO idea how that happened... And then there's the issue of keeping things separate once I've got them cataloged. And once I get that done, I still have 2 other collections that need to be cataloged. Hopefully this 'little bit at a time' approach will work. Just makes the end point of the project a highly uncertain place in time. And, of course, this in no way takes into account all the work that actually needs to be done in the main room downstairs. And it doesn't slow my rate of acquisition one tiny little bit!

**My garage is slowly filling with things being removed from the house that are of uncertain disposition and destination. I'm just happy that for once it's not me junking up the garage for the summer. I am upset, however, that it doesn't appear to be impinging on my workflow.

**The latest shot has been fired from my side in the ongoing chess battle between myself and Mr Koch. Even after pondering it intermittently for over a week, it's the same move I had thought of right at the outset of his last move. I can only conclude that that means it's drastically, horribly wrong.

**The house right beside us is now officially for sale. It joins the house caddy corner across the street from us, and the other three down on the cul-de-sac east of us. I think there are a couple off in the main part of the subdivision as well. I'm fairly sure that at least two of those five are empty. Wait! What's that sound? Oh, it's my home's value dropping even more! Goody! I do find it interesting that our house is closing in on being 40 years old, and we're the second owners. The house behind us is 3-4 years old and they are currently looking for the 3rd owner(s). But at the rate property is moving around here, I think it will be quite some time before it or any of the others sell. Makes me think I should take advantage of that house being empty and get the antenna taken down before anyone new moves in.

**It's becoming a very strong possibility that we will be dipping into the equity loan again to finance the skylights we want for the living room. I want to see if they'll cut us a deal on running a tube light down to the basement as part of the package. Time to get on the horn to Home Depot.

**Couple of weeks and no word from Cromag. Interesting. Very interesting.

**Nice to know Dhawk is still out there. Where she is and how she got there are stories yet to be told, though.

**