Day 196 of 362

Hey all... another day, another Magic: the Gathering-related event to celebrate the release of a new set. It seems like these days come more and more often...

Other than that, not much is happening... The family is recovering from the gastro-intestinomical adventure that is the late night White Castle run. It was good, but many of us do not... "smell good". The players at the store should LOVE that... =P

The World of Darkness game is going on later tonight, so I'll get to leave the store as Loq takes over. I'm not certain if I'm going to go hang out with friends, or hang by myself at home. Friends are great, but I am in desperate need of some "me" time to decompress over some things. Ehh... who knows?

We all figure it out in the end...

-- GopherDave

Day 195 of 362

Does this tie make my butt look big?

Okay... it's the Friday of a an MtG release day... I'm exhausted from getting the singles and playsets ready for sale last night/this morning, but I'm not the only one...

Many, MANY thanks to Hi-Sign, Osmosis, Rygar, Skribl, Pumpkin, and last, but NEVER least, the lovely Loquacious. Without your help, well... I *COULD* have done it, but it would have ABSOLUTELY SUCKED!!! Thank you all, very, VERY much...

Which leads us to today at the store... It's going to be a Magic: the Gathering-filled day with the release of M12, and Skribl and I will be slinging cards all day... and, if anyone is looking for the new Miskatonic Horror expansion for Arkham Horror or even just a copy of Pandemic (which finally came back in stock after six months of being OSM), well, we can do that as well...

We'd just love to see y'all there... =)

-- GopherDave

Day 194 of 362

Another day here... I'm heading off to the store to handle "purposefully delayed shipment day". We have a LOT of stuff coming in. Mostly Magic cards in the form of stuff for the release of M12, but there are some other things in there as well...

Later on, I get to play in Zug's Champions game... In a bizarre twist of irony, I am playing a version of my VERY FIRST Champions character, the Dark. The ironic part is that the first game I played this character in is where I first met Zug (as a fellow player). After that game flew apart after something like six runs (the GM literally disappeared), I didn't see Zug again... ...until 20+ years later when he steps into our store to buy something.

I love this business... =)

-- GopherDave

Day 193 of 362

It's actually a quiet Wednesday at the Gopher. Since MtG: M12 comes out this Friday, I pushed orders back a day. Thus, Thursday will be *VERY* hectic With shipments, cracking booster packs for singles, pricing, sorting, yadda, yadda, yadda...

Beyond that, Jeff Rients is running Boot Hill and we should have a little bit of Warmachine happening today... and I'm not hugely involved with any of it...

That all said, I'll still be busy... I have a fair amount of prep work to do for the M12 release, I need to get off my backside and do some graphics for the web site update we are planning, and we have some cards I to get priced sleeved and into the binders.

Busy times here at the Gopher... Busy times, indeed...

-- GopherDave

Day 192 of 362

Another day... another stressful weekend spilling over into the weekday.

On the plus side, I have my laptop back. On the negative side, my having it caused a rift between my son and myself. Don't ask... you hurt yourself trying to wrap your head around the non-existent logic of it all. Suffice it to say that I exploded over something that was trivial, but that despite being trivial, the incident was the tipping point for a lot of long-held frustration on my part.

As said, my son did not deserve to be the dumping point of my rage. I did not strike him, nor did I even wish to, but there was a lot of verbal rage coming out of me that I should not have spewed at him, but I did... and I've done this before... to other people... mostly, my wife, who also doesn't always deserve to be the target of my rage...

I'll be the first to admit... I'm not a good person at heart. I'm bitter, cynical, paranoid, angry, and emotionally stifled enough to be the eternally rampaging child. Conversely, I do have my good points... I'm passionately loyal to the people I feel deserve it, and will defend them against the world intensely... I'm funny... I'm fairly gregarious... I can be a LOT of fun to be around... I'm brutally honest in that I will not say something behind your back that I won't say to your face...

I'm not sure the good points outweigh the bad ones... I've been trying to minimize the bad parts for some time now...

It doesn't always work...

peace..?

-- GopherDave

Day 191 of 362

Okay, getting ready to go into the store. This is Monday, and I usually get to leave early, but the beautiful Loquacious is navigating her way back home from the wilds of Arkansas. She was supposed to be home yesterday, but an incident happened with the car. Long story short, a quick-fix has been made that should get her home, but there's still an important repair coming.

I was grumpy about this for a bit, then karma smacked me upside the head and let me know that there are other people who are having a rougher time of it all. The majority of my current issues involve material things... if I throw enough money at them, the issues will be resolved and all will be right with the world.

The karma smacking involved a friend having his relationship with his girlfriend absolutely explode. He's devastated and needs some support to keep from losing it. So while I'm on the phone last night and my friend is pouring his heart out, in the middle of it all he stops and takes the time to say "thank you" for the continued existence of the Gopher. It's been a refuge from various issues in his life lately... A place where he can come in and just be... Yeah, the worries will still be there, but at least, for a small while, he can relax. Then he proceeded to tell me of another person who's said the same thing. Combine this with ANOTHER regular who's getting ready to move coming up to me at the end of the evening last night and expressing his appreciation for the place and the atmosphere we provide, and this man is holding back tears while this is happening... it's humbling... in a very cosmic way...

I had not truly realized how much we meant to our community of friends, and hearing it makes EVERYTHING we do with Armored Gopher Games all the more worthwhile... and also places the issues with Loq's car, my laptop, and other broken (and semi-broken) items into complete perspective.

Hell, I've got it easy...

• I've got a beautiful, fabulous wife who loves me (however "wrecky" she may be or lost she may get)...
• I've got two FANTASTIC children who amaze me every time I turn around...
• I've got a metric crap-ton of friends who are there to listen to my very insignificant kvetching, and sympathize with me while I do so...
• I'm blessed with stewardship over a place that has become a focal point and refuge for a great many people...

What more could I really want?

-- GopherDave

Day 190 of 362

It's the Sunday after a big event, and I actually got to sleep in until 8:30AM. Rock!

As I am writing this, I received a phone call from the Loquacious one. It was great to hear her voice, but the news she brought was one of another tribulation that we'll deal with together. It's all good and nothing that a little money cannot fix.

Overall, things at the store, once I get them set up, promises to be very mellow. Which is good... I could use mellow...

peace... GopherDave