T-Minus 14 Days...

As of Monday, we have two weeks to get our stuff together and get the new place up and running. We think we can do it, though I will admit I didn't think things through entirely.

April Fools' Day as an opening day is not a joke, despite what some people thought. No... What I didn't think about was March 31st being Easter frickin' Sunday. Now, I will be the first to admit that I love God, but I *HATE* church. That fact combined with being quite focused on our business means that most religious-oriented holidays outside of Christmas fall *COMPLETELY* out of my notice zone.

Thus, while help is coming for the "hard move", it probably will not be as abundant as I first thought. That is entirely my bad. However, we will do what we can to make the original date a reality.

Not much else beyond that... Back to work...

-- GopherDave

Now The Real Fun Begins...

Okay... Tonight was the first Friday Night Magic in some time where we didn't actually *need* the extra space. That being said, it was still a good day...

This morning, I walked away from the landlord's office with a signed lease for the new space. It's done. It's happening. Now, things begin to move. For the last ten days or so, I've felt like a drag racer that has its rear wheels propped up about three inches off of the asphalt, but they're spinning full bore. Not going anywhere, but ready to hit the ground running...

We are now burning the proverbial rubber...

Monday, I will begin contacting distributors and filling out the paperwork for the address switchover. I will also need to get the business license updated. This weekend, I am hoping to get the business card template updated, a graphic for the light box at the new space done, a new door graphic put together, and two signs done for the door at our current space. One, detailing the upcoming move, and another pointing people to the new space after the move. The landlord said he is willing to leave the second sign in the windows of the soon-to-be-empty space until he rents it out. Little things like that are why we *REALLY* like our landlord and wanted to continue renting from him if we could at all help it.

Loquacious has already started on her end of things, contacting various utility companies and setting up those change-overs. My beautiful wife has also been in constant contact with the gentleman in charge of small business development for our city. Turns out he's also a gamer, and had no idea we were here for almost four years at our current address until he wandered into our store this past November. I found that weird because the city name-dropped us in a press release and an editorial when we first moved here back in February of 2009. Oh well... it happens.

Our fantastic employees (Skribl, High-Sign, BigBank, and Double-L) are already chiming in with suggestions and thoughts on how the flow of the new space could work.

We are also starting to wrangle help to make the physical things happen. That's where the bulk of the Gophers come in...

As a store, Armored Gopher Games is incredibly blessed to have a community such as we have. If we, as a store, need help putting up slatwall panels, packing up and moving to/from a convention, computer technical support, electrical work, minor maintenance, or even moving the entire store, the Gophers are there for us. It is their love of our community, and *THEIR* desire to see the store be successful that ultimately make it possible.

Loq and I? We're just the shepherds of an incredible flock of NOT-sheep...  =P

That's why the phrase "Gopher Mafia" fits us so well...

Mafia... La Cosa Nostra ("This Thing Of Ours")... La Familia... Family...

Willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done... =)

-- GopherDave

KA. BOOM.

One of the "good" (but stressful) bombs I've been dealing with over the last week...

http://armored-gopher.com/content/ka-boom

Now the real pressure begins...

Bombs, Bombs, and More Bombs...

And the bombs keeping dropping fast and furious at GopherCentral...

That being said, not all of the bombs are bad...

One is something I cannot officially confirm/deny at this point. It's ultimately a bomb full of awesome-sauce with the only drawback being a rather rapid expiration date.

Another bomb is that Ranger came and looked at my hapless laptop. Apparently I did something right, because he cannot seem to find any leftover malware hiding in any dark recesses of the machine after I ran something like *SEVEN* different virus and anti-rootkit scans on it. I will, however, thank Ranger for taking his time to look, as I have *NO* idea where to look to make certain bad computer things are gone.

Thank you, Ranger. 'Tis appreciated, sir. =)

Currently, the angsty, stressful bombs are not rearing their pointed little heads, and I will give thanks for that. Those can stay away for a bit until I can regain some emotional equilibrium.

Exit, with no catch phrase or theme music whatsoever... =P

-- GopherDave

Revisiting A Theory...

Well... I was originally going to write this at the store on my laptop when I had a chunk of free time. Free time, however, turned into spend five hours trying to clean a variant of the "Sirefef.A" virus off of the laptop after a "drive-by" trojan dump...

*sigh*

I've done a couple of cleansings with Microsoft Security Essentials, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, and Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit Beta. I *believe* I have the machine pretty much clean, but I am not trusting it until our friend Ranger gives it a clean, bill of health.

Beyond that, life is peachy, with more bombs dropping faster than I can catch them in the buckets...

Anyway, the title of today's piece touches on an old adage of "if you look good, you feel good".

Now, since about November, I have been in a lingering malaise. Scratch that. I've been in a depression so deep the only entities keeping me from slitting my wrists while I'm high on LSD and listening to the Cure are my wife, kids, dog, and friends. Left to my own devices, there's a good chance this blog would have abruptly ended before the start of 2013. I was not left to my own devices, and Loquacious, Skribl, Pumpkin, and Dinero, among others, have helped to keep me going whether they know it or not. No lie. I was is a bad way...

During that time, I had begun to slide back in the direction of "Comic-Book Guy" from the Simpsons in regard to dress and demeanor. Normally, I'm pretty oblivious to my own shortcomings, but I did notice what was happening. I just didn't care. In that time, I could string two to four days of "uniform" together, but then it would be followed by two plus days of wearing/bathing whatever/whenever was convenient for me. My patience with customers was eroding, along with my sanity. Not good for business, and not good for the psyche...

This all said, I *AM* trying to get better. I am currently treating a severe Vitamin D deficiency, though I'm not certain it's doing any good. Plus, and if the bombs would stop dropping, I'd like to get back to the gym on a regular basis and drop the weight I've regained and then some. I believe the whole exercise thing alone would be a step back in the proper direction.

I just need for life to quit throwing curve balls at me for a couple of weeks...

Given what's going on currently, though, I think things are only just beginning.

Jeez, I hope there is a safety strap for this ride...

...And if I ever knowingly encounter the asshats that created the stupid computer virus infecting my laptop, I will set their scrotums on fire...

-- GopherDave

I Am Not Dead, Just Dodging Bombs Of Various Sizes...

Guess who's back... back again...

...And rocking the socks that match the tie, thank you very much...

Okay... I know it has been a while. In the interim, not much has happened.

The bulk of the gaming I was supposed to be involved in has pretty much fallen through as life has been dropping the proverbial rocks upon myself, my family, and my friends. On top of that (or because of it), I have been dealing with a major depressive downswing.

As such, not much has been getting done beyond just maintaining. DICEBAG, while receiving some great feedback, has had no work done on it. Most of my free time that I have managed to carve out has been spent just trying to get things done at the store.

I believe I am pulling out of the downswing and I am hoping to get some game-oriented work done, provided nothing jumps out and demands my attention to the point of keeping my mind occupied.

Mostly, though, today's post is let y'all know I'm still breathing...

-- GopherDave

Winter War Recap (4 of 4)...

Yep, It's been a week. Actually wore the uniform a couple of times and didn't take pictures. Time has been weird, plus a *TON* of real-life things have been crashing down on my pointed little head. Blogging time has been almost non-existent.

As it goes, I need to do the recap for the last DICEBAG event I ran at Winter War.

This one will be a quickie, folks...

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Incident at Sigma-Omicron 2 (Space Opera/Science Fiction)

Okay, this one happened on Sunday morning. My illness was in full effect, and I woke up with head full of puss and ache. I went to the convention with the intent of bailing if there were three or fewer people signed up for it. I got there, and there were indeed only three folks signed up, but then I looked at the names. Dammit. They were all people I liked and enjoyed gaming with. So I sucked it up and hauled my carcass up to my scheduled room.

Once there, the three folks showed up, and we were joined by two other players in short order, bring our contingent up to five players and a sick GM.

I ran through the scenario intro and the quick rules rundown in cold medicine-induced confusion and short order, and the scenario began...

...I should have cancelled the game.

I was not at my best, and things were set up to be an Alien-esque scenario with a lost ship, shot engines, and a bug hunt. One of the player's thought his character didn't have anything to do (he was playing the ship's goon). To be fair, I didn't present him with a lot of opportunities, but even the ones he did have, he did nothing by his own choice. Another player tried to tromp through the scenario like it was "killing-orcs-for-beer-money-but-with-lasers" mode. He shot at everything that moved, including his own teammates at times. The other players were figuring things out, but it all seemed to be dragged down by my illness, the out-of-their-comfort-zone players, and the fact I was a little less prepared than I should have been.

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It was easily the worst game of the convention for me. I should have been better.

That being said, out of four games, two were good, one was great, and one was horri-bad. I've had worse track records for conventions in terms of proportions of good games to bad games. I did get some good feed back for the system, but things have not been conducive to being able to make any sort of changes and/or improvements yet.

Work will be done, though. Things were too encouraging for me to leave it hanging.

Until next time...

--GopherDave