Bright End of Nowhere

I seem to be battling insomnia again. I do not remember the last time I got a solid 8 hours of sleep. The world is starting to go kinda fuzzy at the edges, and yet, here I am. I do not know why this keeps happening. I thought I was done with this ridiculousness after I graduated. SOMETIMES, I'M WRONG.

So, last post I mentioned that friends were trying to rope me into running a tabletop. Probably in no small part of the aformentioned sleep-deprivation, they succeeded. Now I find myself trying to cram the rules for a system I've never used before (nor have my players) into my head before the first session in less than two weeks. Apparently, there's a d6-based A Song of Ice and Fire roleplaying game. Fascinating!

Yes, I'm running a ASoIaF campaign. It takes place "20 minutes post A Dance with Dragons", meaning news of the events of the later chapters hasn't entirely propagated nor is the status of the later chapters in stasis. The premise is ( minor spoilers for ADwD )

In further evidence that my life revolves around gaming, when I've not been focused on that, I've been working on the IAP tenday I'm supposedly running. I am trying not to let panic and despair set in due to the realization that it might be inevitable that Synchronicity gets compared to HP: Year 7. Because there are fundamental differences in the type of games that mean that Synch really can't live up to Year 7. Mainly that Year 7 had this established world so didn't have to do as much world-building to establish with players what to expect. That and it's kinda wish-fulfillment: seriously, you got to pretend you were a Hogwarts student. How many years have some people been waiting for that? Meanwhile, Synch's a Guild original, and I don't know if we're going to get that level of immersion and favor. I don't know. It's kind of needless panic, but in the dark hours of the night, it eats at me, because I want to run the best game possible.

I noticed that Bahamut was behaving oddly sluggish when using Firefox yesterday morning. I didn't deal with it then, figuring virus scan was running in the background, so left for work. When I came home, I noticed that it was still laggy, and then checked the RAM usage, which was logged in at just under "slightly ridiculous". Which, okay, it's Firefox 3.6.xx, which we all know leaks RAM like the Titanic. So I restart the program and Chrome, and that makes it somewhat better.

Then I start trying to play League of Legends, and holy hell, thank god that was a bot game because I was getting maybe 10 seconds of play every 30. It was choking on the game that much. (It says something about the quality of the bots that despite this, I was STILL winning against it, with my only deaths being accidental tower-dives. Or, you know, that it's because I was playing Teemo, and Teemo is awesome. This led to some amusing moments of "ultranos has killed an enemy!" "I did? When?! HOW?!") I closed just about every other program in the hopes that it was a memory leak somewhere, but no such luck. So, reboot time.

Apparently, that was my first mistake. (My zeroth mistake was mentioning my computer was acting strangely over Teamspeak with DMark, which means he thought about it, which means problems were going to start occurring.)

Long story short, my computer is over, the 1TB HD with the OS has a bad sector and needs to be RMAed because it's still in warranty (thanks, Seagate!), and all my data has to be transferred off of it before I send it in. Most of my critical data is stored in multiple places, so the only thing I'm grumpy about with regards to that is trying to figure out how to rescue my saved games (like the 90-hour unfinished game of DA:O...). I might also take the time to grab an SSD off Newegg and install the OS on that. Mostly, though, this is just a pain in the ass that I don't really want to deal with, but have to, because I do love Bahamut, even when it is a problem child.

It could also be that the universe is telling me to spend the weekend finishing A Dance with Dragons, as I'm 40% of the way through it, and it is currently breaking my heart. SO GOOD. Even if the book ended where I'm at right now, I'd be happy. Well, joining the fandom in crying for more, but happy. (Damn, with Bahamut down, it'll be harder to make the ASoIaF icon set I was planning. Oh well.)

1. On Saturday, my lab had it's annual BBQ, which was potluck style, so there was entirely too much food. This was exacerbated in that it was actually 2 labs, so everyone brought lots of food. I contributed to this excess when it looked like not many people were bringing things to put on the grill, so volunteered to bring chicken. And since I'm me, I hit up McKinnon's with $15. Which, because it's McKinnon's, netted me 40+ chicken wings and drumsticks. Even more awesomely, the recipe I got from Dad was a huge hit, not only with the lab, but with the other party later on Saturday night I dumped a tray of chicken on. Huzzah for simple yet tasty dishes!

2. My housing situation is...complex. Long story short, it feels like our landlord pulled some shenanigans, and we don't feel like playing the game anymore, so we're taking our money and toys and going elsewhere. Which means I have to pack up all my stuff soon. (When did I acquire so much stuff? Why?) I need to remember to go through all my old clothing and set aside all the ones I haven't worn since freshman year for charity.

3. I drank the Kool-Aid and got a pair of Vibram FiveFingers last Monday. I think I'm in love. My knees haven't hurt all week.

4. I might do a longer post on my feelings about the first season of Game of Thrones, but suffice it to say that after the season finale last night, my thought process went:
"Holy crap...wait, SPRING 2012?! ... ...TO THE KINDLE-MOBILE!"
Which means I'm possibly reading two highly-depressing books at the same time.

5. I think it's official that I'm addicted to League of Legends. I have over 100 games I've paid for on Steam alone, and all I want to do is play the Free-to-Play RTS. *facepalm*

6. Typing this up has been difficult due to the fact that I'm talented and nearly sliced off the tip of my left thumb with a chef's knife while prepping dinner. Cut through about 1.5mm of flesh, thus cutting halfway through the tip of the nail. (I've managed to cut the nail worse with a set of nail clippers) So now the thumb is wrapped up in gauze and athletic tape to the first joint. Like I said, I'm talented.

Watching Game of Thrones is so much better with a bunch of geeks, scientists, and roleplayers.

IRONIC ICON IS IRONIC.

( Spoilers HO! )