I did it again yesterday - I updated after lunch. So if you haven't read about my enlightenment, you should. It's enlightening.

---

K.T. came home last night. Apparently, she made a nuisance of herself by demanding to be allowed to sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time, so they decided she was strong enough to come home. She's supposed to be resting for the remainder of the week - no work, no housework, nothing strenuous at all - so her bronchitis has a chance to go away. And they've told her she has to go on a diet, and given her a stack of dietary restrictions as long as my arm.

But at least she's home, where she'll be able to rest.

Her father has made an asshole of himself by offering to compete at their diets - he wanted to lay a bet on who could lose X amount the fastest. What a jerk. Hasn't it ever occured to him that it would be more productive to just try to be supportive? Oh, well. I told K.T. that I would be her "diet buddy" and we could bitch and complain about diet food together, and swap recipes, and commiserate about having to eat salads whenever we go out, and celebrate the lost pounds. That sort of thing. We even have about the same amount of weight to lose, though she'll probably do it faster - for one thing, she's got a lot more willpower and stubbornness than I do. For another, because she's dieting to control diabetes, she's got better reasons than I do not to cheat.

But I don't think you'll have to hear me complain anymore that I can't maintain my diet at games, since we'll be backing each other up.

---

While surfing yesterday, I stumbled across a site which will tell you the Mandarin Chinese equivalent of your name. (All right, I know exactly the path I followed to get there, but do you care? Not really.) Because the name chosen by the program is based primarily on the sound of your real name with a couple of other factors tossed in, there are quite a few different possibilities. The name I liked best was Bai Lanzhi, which means Seeing Wisdom. Well, who wouldn't like a name like that?

---

At the Meade Hall Monday night, Ashby told us about an online comic that I hadn't heard of before, called Sluggy Freelance. I went and looked, and wasn't very impressed with the individual comic for yesterday, but I started back at the beginning, and it was pretty good. The individual comic hadn't been funny because I was unfamiliar with the characters. So if you follow the link I've given, I suggest you jump straight to the beginning and start reading it in order.

---

It occurs to me that I should update my Who's Who page, since I don't think Ashby is mentioned. Nor Richard and Carl, who I've mentioned before and will probably mention again, since they're in my AD&D game. Of course, if I listed everyone that I know, that would be a pretty big list. Maybe I'll rearrange the list to be just people that I talk about.

---

I've got a new design for July all ready to go! I hope you like it; it'll be up tomorrow. There's only one bit that I'm not really happy with, but unless I get complaints, I'll probably just leave it alone for now. See you then!

Well, for those of you who read in the morning, I posted again yesterday afternoon with a much more cheerful note, so if you haven't read about our new table, go back and do so.

The radio station I listen to has two primary DJs in the morning, with a third who comes in a little later than they do and reads the news. Just so I can tell this story without sounding like a complete idiot, the names of the primary DJs are Jeff and MC (MC is female), and the newsreader is Mike.

When I got in the car this morning, Jeff and MC were on the phone with Mike's wife. Apparently, Mike had recently been named Employee of the Month at the radio station, and they were quizzing Mike's wife like it was the Newlywed Game. It turned out that Employee of the Month is worth a bonus, and that Mike hadn't been entirely truthful with his wife about the amount of the bonus, so they got him in trouble. Or at least pretended to; I'm never really sure with this crowd.

But what drew listener calls was the fact that apparently Mike's wife handles the money for them, and Mike gets a $5/week allowance. The call I heard was some woman who demanded to know - if Mike was just driving back and forth to work and his wife packed him a lunch every day, then what did he even need $5 for? I thought this was really funny, myself, because I know I would go crazy if I didn't get to manage my own money.

When I was in college and dating P., he always said that he wanted to get a job and turn over his paycheck to his wife, and draw some sort of allowance for general expenditures. Though he was thinking of $50 or $100 a week. That idea didn't bother me as long as I was the one handling the money, but I couldn't imagine working to make money and then being told that I only got a tiny fraction of it to myself.

Matt and I have six different bank accounts: My savings and checking, his savings and checking, and our savings and checking. We use the joint accounts to pay for things that are jointly ours: the rent, the utilities, groceries, furniture, Babylon 5 videos, etc. We use our own accounts to buy things that aren't household expenses or that belong to only one of us: books, comics, doctor's visits, prescription drugs, gifts for each other, digital cameras, etc. These rules aren't hard and fast - when we go to Sam's Club and buy several joint items and a few individual items, we pay for everything from the joint account and don't worry about it. But in general, that's how it works.

There are a lot of people who think Matt and I have made our lives unnecessarily complicated with our financial setup. K.T. used to say that we were "divorce-ready" and my mother shakes her head in despair every time I say, "my money" or "his money."

But it works for us. I get wild hairs about once every three months and buy something weird and expensive - a Zip drive or a digital camera. Since I buy them with my money, Matt isn't allowed to accuse me of being a spendthrift, and I'm not dipping into money that we've set aside for the important things. I suspect that, the longer we go, the more we'll come to use the joint account. Sometime soon, we'll probably get a joint credit card so we can make larger household purchases (like furniture). But I like having money that I don't have to account to anyone else for, and I suspect Matt feels the same way, and so we'll probably always have our own accounts. And I like it that Matt has his own money, so I don't have to resent money "wasted" on things I'll never use, like comic books that I don't like.

I've heard that the most-cited reason for the breakup of marriages is money. When you've had control of your money for your whole life, it is very difficult to simply turn it over to someone else, or even to drop it into a pot from which this other person can buy things that you would never have bought on your own. Coming to a good agreement that both people are comfortable with - not merely resigned to - is quite possibly one of the more important decisions a new couple has to make. I'm happy with our system, for all its clunky awkwardness.

---

1:00pm
I have achieved enlightenment.

Oh, I confess, I'm slightly surprised that enlightenment took the form of a company-wide e-mail offering tips on ways for us to cut down on the costs of conference-calling, but there it was, right at the end of the e-mail, the font changed to a bright purple so that we would be sure not to miss it: Hope this enlightens!!!

I suppose in my enlightened state, I could quit my job and go live on a mountaintop somewhere, taking only those students brave and determined enough to seek me out. But no, I feel that to truly spread the peace of my life, I must stay here and teach by example.

Of course, since it was a company-wide memo, I'm sure most of my fellow employees are likewise enlightened, but who says that the spiritually enhanced cannot learn from one another, eh?

So. K.T. is in the hospital. This is your cue to look sympathetic and say, "I'm so sorry. I hope it's not serious!" or possible, "What happened?"

I'll leave it to her to tell the complete story, when she gets home. The short of it is that she's got chronic asthma, acute bronchitis, a dangerously low iron count, and diabetes. To make matters worse, the drugs are all fouling each other up. The iron count is low in part because she's been having her period for several weeks straight. The estrogen they gave her to stop that is raising her blood sugar. The steroidal inhaler she uses for her asthma raises her blood sugar. The antibiotics they've given her for the brochitis - go on, guess! - raise her blood sugar. The drugs they're giving her to get her blood sugar back down increase her heart rate and make it difficult to breathe. So they're fighting in circles and expect her to be in the hospital for three to five days.

We had gone over to her place on Saturday to game, but she hadn't been feeling well, and had gone to the emergency room. She said she was feeling better when she came back, so we stayed and talked for a bit, then went home. Sunday morning, Kevin called us to let us know that when the adrenaline they'd given her at the emergency room wore off, she'd felt the need to go back, and this time they hadn't let her go home. He'd been up all night and was just getting home.

So we went to see her last night, and she looked quite a bit better; only had a little bit of wheeze to her breath and could actually talk. Aside from the IV shunt stuck in her hand, she even seemed fairly cheerful, in a K.T. sort of way. (Which is to say, she was cheerfully complaining at the nurses who came in to give her pills and shots, and rolling her eyes at us over her mother-in-law's well-intentioned but annoying busy-bodyness, and picking at her mediocre-looking hospital food, and gleefully refusing to eat the lettuce in her salad or wear the stupid hospital gown.) So she seems to be improving and I hope she'll be out of the hospital soon.

They have commanded her to lose some weight, so in her honor I am cutting short the deliberate break from my diet and going back on the wagon today. I've promised to be her diet-buddy, and we'll complain about nasty diet food to each other, and keep each other in line and who knows - maybe it will actually work.

But last night, leaving the hospital, I was angry. I told Matt I was grumpy so he would just be quiet and not try to be silly and jolly, but it went well beyond grumpy and into full-blown anger. I'm not sure even now if I can explain why.

Angry at the universe for allowing things like this to happen. Angry at Kevin and his mother for bringing their McDonald's food into the room while K.T. is having to contemplate a diet in which that food would be forbidden. Angry at Kevin for bringing his mom with him at all when he knows very well K.T. doesn't much like her. Angry at Matt for telling me to shut up when I was talking to try to keep things light. Angry at myself for not knowing when to shut up on my own and for letting the surroundings make me nervous. Even angry at K.T. for being so concerned about appearances in reverse: She wouldn't go on a diet because she didn't want people to think she was doing it just to look better, so she neglected to do it for her health.

Talking about it isn't helping, either. Matt just came in to give me some information and I bit his head off. Maybe I'll write more later.

---

12:45pm
Okay, I'm feeling more cheerful now. so I'll tell you about the good thing that happened yesterday: We bought a table.

When we got married, my grandmother gave us a check with which to buy a new dining room set. For this reason and that, we kept putting it off, and Grandmom has been getting more than a little impatient with us. We picked this table out from Montgomery Wards back in January, and decided to come back and buy it in June. June almost slipped by us unnoticed, but we managed it!

It was weird, though. We found the table again easily enough, and then went to the service desk. The lady at the desk promised to be with us as soon as she'd finished with this other couple, and we went back to the table to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

While we were waiting, we noticed something odd: There were two different sets we could buy: The table and four chairs, for $500, or the table and six chairs, for $400. HUH? No, you didn't read that wrong, and no, I didn't type it wrong. Apparently, getting two extra chairs would be $100 cheaper. Now, I've seen some weird sales before, but this took the cake!

I theorized that maybe one of the two prices wasn't supposed to be displayed - left over from last week, or maybe in preparation for next week. We pored over the signs, looking for something that would explain it. Nothing.

Finally, a clerk wandered over and asked us if we needed help. Having given up on the original clerk, we told this fellow that we wanted to buy the set. I asked which price applied, and he answered that we were buying the cheaper set that came with more chairs. And then he told us that because they had a 25% off sale going, we were going to get our set for about $300. Holy Windsor chairs, Batman! If we had bought the standard set and the two extra chairs, this would have run us almost $800!

Okay, I'm aware of the fact that the entire set of table and six chairs probably costs no more than $100 fresh from the factory. And I'm also aware that probably no one buys these sets at the displayed price, because there is never a time when there is not some sort of sale. But they succeeded in making us feel superior, so we're enjoying it while it lasts.

Sometime toward the end of the week, they'll call to let us know that the set has been delivered from their warehouse in Maryland, and we'll get my dad to help us go pick it up, since he's got a pickup truck. Of course, we won't actually get to use the new table until we move into our house, but that's only (hopefully) another two months!

Yay!

I did it! I bought a digital camera!

Okay, I actually bought the camera about a week ago - won it on eBay. (I only bid on things on eBay if the person selling them is an agent for a real business, for those of you who are worried about me sending large hunks of money off into the wild blue yonder. I've never been burned, but K.T. was, and I try to learn from the mistakes of others...)

Anyway, for those of you who are curious:

• It's a Sony Digital Mavica, MVC-FD73. (The link takes you to the write-up for the FD71, but it's the same camera. I haven't been able to figure out what the difference is.)
• I paid about $500 for it, which was what it would have cost me at Circuit City if they'd had it in stock. I don't know why the FD71 retails for $700 and the FD73 for $500.
• If I'm taking standard-quality pictures, I can get about 25 pictures on a single floppy. I took some high-quality pictures just to see, but aside from slightly better color quality, there isn't a lot of difference between the high quality mode and the standard.
• Very happy with it, thanks.

It's got several different save modes, including one called e-mail, which is pretty much pointless if you have any kind of graphics software at all: In addition to the 640x480 image, it saves a 320x240 image for you to send via e-mail. I think it could be useful if it saved only the smaller image, but both? How ridiculous.

But I'm very happy to have it. I'm sure it'll be my favorite toy for the next few weeks. Since one of my major rationalizations for buying the thing is the house we're building, I decided to drive over to the lot immediately after work yesterday to take some pictures to post on my House page. It's about ten miles from the office to the new house. I'd gone about six miles when I realized that I had forgotten the battery. The battery for the camera is a rechargeable lithium battery which had arrived with about half an hour left on it, so after playing with the camera a bit, I'd plugged the battery in to recharge. And left it.

So I turned around and drove back to the office and got the battery, muttering under my breath the whole time. Finally, I got back to the lot, popped the battery into the camera, and powered it up. All the little displays came on, and I aimed the camera at the house.

The little LCD screen that shows me what the picture will look like was black. No image.

I thought maybe I hadn't hit the power button correctly, but no - all the little displays were showing, just no picture. I adjusted the brightness level of the LCD. Nothing. I was beginning to panic when I realized that... Well of course you saw it coming... I'd left the lens cap on.

Stop laughing. I've never had a camera that had a lens cap before.

So I took some pictures of the house, as you can see if you followed the above link, and then I went home and took some more pictures, of the afghan I finished a few weeks ago and of a miniature I painted and of the cat (lots of pictures of the cat) and of Matt and... Just about anything I could point the camera at, actually.

Somebody said to me yesterday that they expected the digital camera to replace the film camera soon. I don't think that's true. Certainly not for the casual user. $500 is a lot of money to shell out at one time, and the pictures are not - let us be honest - not the best quality. When it comes to important events, I'll be using my film camera again, because the quality of print I can get with film is so much higher than the quality of a digital camera. Let's put it this way. If you take a print and scan it in, a 3-by-5-inch picture loses no quality if you scan it in at a resolution of 900 dpi, which is to say, 2700x4500 pixels. The best digital cameras out there - which cost in the neighborhood of $5,000 and are used only by professional photographers, might be able to match this (I didn't bother researching any cameras which cost more than my car), but the consumer cameras, which range from $250 - $1,000, can not. And that's just scanning in a small print; if you take the negative for that print and create a bigger print, the quality doesn't change appreciably.

So, next summer when I go to my brother's wedding, I'll be taking my film camera with me, because those are pictures that I'd like to have of the highest quality possible. But for hanging out and having fun, I think the digital camera is a great idea. I'll never have to buy film for this camera, or pay for developing. If I take a picture and hate the way it turns out, I just delete it and try again. No extra costs, so I don't have to worry about taking "worthless" pictures. Nothing else to buy, ever.

Except maybe a spare battery.

Stupid drivers. Everyone thinks that everyone else is a bad driver. People who live one place, and get used to how people drive there, and then move someplace new think that absolutely no-one in the new place know how to drive. That's only understandable, because every place has its own driving patterns. If you live in or near a big city, you're expected to drive as close as physically possible to the car in front of you without actually touching their bumper. In more relaxed areas, you're expected to be able to see at least a little of the street between you while the cars are moving. In very relaxed places, you're considered entirely too tense and rude if you don't leave at least two cars' lengths between you and the car in front of you. That's just an example. There are other things - how you're expected to use things like your turn signal, horn, and headlights and how to do things like make turns, let merging traffic in, etc.

I live in what is commonly known as a "tourist town". Tourist businesses make up well over half of the local areas' revenue, so I try to appreciate their business. And - having been a tourist lost in an unfamiliar place before - I try not to be too impatient with people driving slowly and consulting maps. Especially here. Not only is Williamsburg not laid out in a neat grid, but no single part of Williamsburg is laid out in a grid. None. There are no completely straight roads, and there are very few perpendicular intersections. The traffic patterns change from year to year as the traffic engineers try desperately to find a way to keep certain busy intersections from getting too awful without resorting to adding new lanes. (Progress is just Not Done in Williamsburg - at least, not in the areas that the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has any say over.) It's a terribly confusing place to be, even for a local. I hardly ever leave my apartment to go somewhere in Williamsburg without considering at least half a dozen possible routes. Even when I'm going to places I go frequently. So I try to be patient with tourists who are obviously lost, though I sometimes wish they would pull over to read their maps.

But every now and then, I encounter some stupidity so monumental, I can't stand it.

Last night, Matt and I went over to K.T.'s and Kevin's for dinner. K.T. had just had a fairly distressing visit to the doctor, so she wasn't up to cooking the mediterranean meal she's been planning, but that was understandable. We had spaghetti instead, and watching (finally!) The Man in the Iron Mask. (In case you're wondering, I thought a lot of the acting was a bit wooden - especially John Malkovich's, who spent a lot of time sounding like he was reading his lines instead of speaking them - but because I love swash and buckle action, adore Gerard Depardieu as an actor, and even think Leonardo DiCaprio is nice eye-candy, I enjoyed it immensely.)

Anyway, we didn't leave until fairly late, but we'd been expecting that. ("Fairly late" for me means "after nine.") It was about quarter 'til ten when we pulled off the interstate onto our exit, in the middle of a long string of other cars.

This is sortof unusual. Not many people take our exit, especially not late at night. But I didn't really care - I just wanted to go home and take something for my sniffles and go to bed. Now, this ramp ends in a split, so you can drive in either direction on the road at the end. It's a fairly common design for ramps that aren't expecting a lot of traffic. But there's not a lot of choice, really: every sign for gas, food, lodging, and information points to the left. If you take the right fork, you wind up at Camp Peary, where a moderately tense young man holding an M-16 will ask you to turn around. No, you can't come through the gate to do so. So really, left is your only option, and there are plenty of signs that explain this to you.

The car in front of the car in front of me came to a stop at the stop sign, and its driver looked back and forth. I began to pull to a stop. The car in front of me edged carefully onto the shoulder and pulled up next to the stopped car. What the hell was this? The stopped car hadn't been there anywhere close to long enough to be getting impatient about them yet. Matt and I exchanged a look.

Then we could see that the first car's driver had leaned over and was rolling down his passenger window, and that he was talking to the driver of the second car. Matt and I exchanged another look. There are no choices. After you turn left, you have to drive for another mile or so before there's even a hint of civilization. Why in all the gods' names did these people find it necessary to have conference at the end of an exit-ramp? There was only one reasonable direction to go. There is even plenty of shoulder to pull onto just after you make the turn. There were two or three cars behind me, and we were all waiting impatiently to go somewhere. I honked very quickly. They ignored me, and Matt and I exchanged yet another look.

Finally, after a thankfully brief conference, the two cars decided to go left. My next turn was immediately after this one, so I didn't get to see whether they pulled over again for a longer conference, or what, but boy do I feel secure knowing that these two tourists (yeah, they were definately tourists - their license plates were from Florida and North Carolina, respectively) are visiting my beautiful town.

I think I'll stay out of the tourist end of town for a while.

Boy, oh, boy are you in for a treat today! I got a catalog yesterday from Hammacher Schlemmer, which is - as you know if you've ever looked through their catalogs on airplanes - a catalog for people with more money than sense. I have no idea how I got on their mailing list, but I just can't pass up the opportunity to mock some of the more absurd items.

Silent Electric Violin™ Winner of the 1998 Popular Science "What's New" Award, this violin generates sound through headphones to allow beginners, or accomplished musicians, to play or practice anytime without disturbing others. It runs on batteries (included) or may be plugged into a standard outlet with an adapter (sold separately below). ...the internal computer chip enhances the sound digitally to mimic the acoustics of 3 different environments: practice room, small concert hall, or large concert hall. With the cord provided, the violin can also be plugged into a tape or CD player, so a musician can play along with recorded music. ...

$1,199.95

Okay, while I appreciate the idea, I'm extremely dubious about this. I don't know how they keep the thing from making real noises, and I don't know that it will accurately capture sour notes and inflict them on the user. Not only that, but this is, beyond a shadow of doubt, the ugliest violin I've ever seen. There's no body. Just enough wood is there for the strings and pegs to attach to, and there's curve of wood that looks like the outer edge of a violin - but only on half. The top half of the violin (the half that usually goes beside your neck) is nothing but a chinrest. Very, very ugly. It wouldn't have hurt the electronics of the system to make a complete body, would it? What's the deal, here?

The Two-Person Submarine This craft allows you to cruise underwater at up to 4 knots without cumbersome diving equipment. The cockpit can be easily entered by swimming into the opening in the back of the hull. Once inside, passengers sit in a fold-out seat and their bodies from the waist up are enclosed in the air-tight cabin. Air pressure inside the cabin matches the water pressure outside to keep water from entering. The submarine's three front Lexan® flat windows allow for easy visual navigation, while the high-intensity 50-watt headlight casts a beam up to 50 feet (depending on water conditions). ... The sub has a maximum depth of 130 feet. The sub can be towed on a trailer behind almost any car and launched from a boat ramp. Must obtain scuba certification to purchase; training provided by manufacturer. Constructed of compression-proof 3/8-inch thick fiberglass. The motors' rechargeable 24-volt battery (included) operates for 4-8 hours.

$62,900.00
(Please add $500.00 to regular shipping and handling.)

Three-Person Submarine As above, but the air-tight cabin is larger to accommodate 3 people.

$72,900.00
(Please add $500.00 to regular shipping and handling.)

Is this not the ultimate in the more-money-than-sense category? I almost laughed myself sick. I don't even need to mock this one; it mocks itself. Here's a note: If you find yourself with an extra $63,000 to throw around and think a personal submarine would be a good idea, forget it and just send the money to me.

Cordless Insect Vacuum This lightweight, battery-powered device lets you quickly capture and dispose of insects at a comfortable distance without ever having to touch them. Flies, spiders, and bees are suctioned by the 14,000 rpm fan, and drawn into a sealed disposable cartridge (included). Lined with a non-toxic gel (harmless to humans and pets), the cartridge traps and quickly kills insects.

$49.95
Six disposable cartriges: $29.95

I've used a vacuum to suck up spiders before - I'm not ashamed to admit that. But I've never in my life thought I needed a special tool to do the job. The reach on this thing (from looking at the picture) is only about a foot and a half - nowhere near as comfortable a distance as my four-foot-long vacuum attachment. I also find myself vastly amused by the picture, in which they show this marvel of redundancy sucking up the fakest-looking spider I've ever seen in my life. Obviously, the picture model didn't trust it enough to use it to suck up a real bug.

Genuine Turkish Bathrobe Turkish toweling is legendary throughout the world for its extraordinary thickness and absorbency. This robe is made of that same thirsty, 100% cotton with each square yard of fabric weighting a full 22 ounces (60% heavier than other robes) and containing 69,000 loops to absorb water and help conserve body heat. ... The more the robe is washed the softer and more absorbent it becomes, as the cotton fibers "bloom".

$99.95

It isn't so much the item which amused me here - I might even like one myself. (Though not for $100!) But in my world, we call it "fraying," not "blooming".

The Silk Sleep Sack For those who prefer the comfort and the unquestionable hygiene of their own bed linens, this travel sack allows a traveler to easily take their own bedding along on overnight trips or for extended excursions. Over 15 feet of 100% washable silk is used to make this sleep sack, but it rolls into its own silk drawstring pouch the size of a wallet and weighs only seven ounces.

$79.95

This thing is royal blue, so there's no question that your best friend is going to know you don't trust her to put clean sheets on the guest bed. It's both longer and wider than a sleeping bag, so if you take it camping with you, you're going to get that sensation of wrinkled sheets. And it only fits one person, so while you won't be feeling those scratchy hotel sheets, you won't be able to touch your partner, either. All in all, an item for the obsessively tidy only.

Imprevious Tablewear Easily mistaken for fine crystal, this tablewear is actually made of polycarbonate - the same material used in bulletproof glass. Unlike common acrylic tablewear, it is microwavable and dishwasher safe. It won't cloud or craze, even after 2,000 dishwasher cycles. It will not crack or shatter, even if forcefully struck with a blunt object or dropped on a hard surface.

53-ounce pitcher: $34.95
10-ounce tumbler (set of six): $39.95
17-ounce tumbler (set of six): $44.95
14-ounce pilsner (set of six): $59.95
7-ounce champagne flute (set of six): $49.95

Did I read that correctly? Bulletproof tableware? Well, no, but it's made out of the same thing as bulletproof glass, and isn't that close enough? For those people, I suppose, who just can't bear the thought of serving lemonade by the pool in plastic cups. How absurd.

Without quoting the flavor text, I hope you can appreciate the absurdity of these, too:

Plush Carpet Car Floor Mats (monogramming extra): $179.95
Golfer's Sandals: $86.95
Cordless Insect Vacuum: $49.95
Electronic Pants Presser: $329.95
Remote-controlled Variable Speed Fan: $89.95
Cracker and Chip Electric Crisper: $69.95
Microwave Flower Press: $49.95
Floating Trampoline: $5,999.00
Pressure-Molded Water Float with Ergonomic Headrest: $124.95

The car is still in the shop. When I called yesterday at two, they still hadn't taken the dashboard apart to see exactly which piece had broken. But according to Chuck, the guy working on my car, it's going to be one of two pieces, and the labor will be about the same either way. The two pieces are only about thirty dollars apart in price, so it's going to cost me slightly less than $200 to get my car fixed. Again. It might be ready by this evening.

Matt and I are supposed to have dinner with K.T. and Kevin tomorrow evening. This time, she's trying a Mediterranean menu. I'm looking forward to it.

It felt good to take yesterday off. We did the laundry, read the comics, and generally loafed around the apartment. It felt nice. Today I'm back at work, hoping like hell that I'll actually get some work to do, but not really expecting it. Oh, well. I need to do some work for my game, anyway. Since everyone has characters now, I need to do some introductions and get ready for the opening game. I hope this goes well. I've taken a little flak already for letting Carl have as much equipment as I did, but I did what I told everyone I would do: I looked at the list and didn't see anything on it that the character - being sent out into the world by loving ex-adventurer parents - wouldn't give him. And most of the value of his equipment was tied up into his horse and armor, and the first adventure isn't going to be heavily combat-oriented, anyway. (Most of them won't be. As a GM, I prefer puzzles and dilemmas to plain combat most of the time.) I don't think I was especially unfair (everyone else gets to pick their own equipment as well) and I'm not all that worried about it as such. I'm just a little concerned that this is symptomatic of the game as a whole. I don't want to be running a game where the players are mad at each other because they all think the others have better stats or better equipment or the best treasure. I'm trying to keep things as fair as possible, but... Oh, well. We'll see what happens, I guess. I'm wondering, though, if I should have given them points to distribute for their stats and a fixed amount of cash to spend on equipment. I've been jealous of other people's characters before, though, and I think the worst thing is being part of a party and not being able to do anything useful. So I'll have to keep a close watch on that, and make sure that both fighters are challenged, that the mages' spellbooks have different and complimentary spells, that there are locks for the thief to defeat, and for gods' sakes something for the cleric to do besides play medic!

At any rate, I made a lot of concessions during character creation that I suppose some of my players wish I hadn't made. And Carl is the sort of player who will take full advantage of every bit of leeway I give him. I'll have to be careful if I'm going to keep him in check. But I'm a little hurt that the other players don't trust me to do that. (K.T.'s not the only one - she's just the only one who posted something I could link to.)

Oh, well. Hopefully once the game gets underway, they'll feel differently. What I'm really hoping is that, if I can balance things just right, they'll all feel grateful for each others' skills, and learn to really work together as a team.

But I'm not holding my breath.