Uncle...

Found a new way to take pictures with my phone that is easier than before... Shame they look like crap... The sweater is dark green, the tie is gold, and the shirt is blue in reality.

Yeah, the hits just keep on coming this year. Had a good friend pass a couple of weeks ago. The funeral and memorial services have all passed, and everyone is getting on with their lives. Me? I haven't grieved yet. I expect it to come at the most inopportune time. That's the way the year has gone.

Game-wise, things are decent. Most of my recent issues stem from the morass of depression that I cannot seem to get myself out of...

Side note... I've seen Guardians of the Galaxy seven times now... I have a problem... Also, if you haven't seen it, do so... NOW!

Back to games... Tai'eres is in a good place story-wise, though I am about ready to "publish" another revision. I need to figure out where that will fall, as I don't like to change rules on players too much in mid-campaign, and this is looking like a significant update/change.

The Champions game has gone through yet another reboot. This time around, I've given it more structure from my end. There is still one more character to introduce (his player has been out of town on business for a bit), but things are looking better than they were. I am also looking at taking my villain write-ups and collecting them up in a "Enemies"-style sourcebook. That would take me a lot of work on my end, as many of the backgrounds are lost to old file formats and the physical copies were most likely tossed in one of our many moves over the years. I started on this a bit, and created a nice "government file" format that looks good on the screen. Unfortunately, it looks like crap printed out, so I may just chuck the whole government aesthetic of what I am doing and put it together in something that is basic, readable, and appealing. The basic idea is to do booklets that cover a villain team of four to seven bad guys, and perhaps compilations of solo villains with five to ten in each. This is still in the working stages...

Tootles for now...

-- GopherDave

Boo...

Okay, This is sort of a check in...

The month of March sort of went like this for me...

Life: "Dave... Do me a favor and plant your feet about two... two and a half feet apart, okay..."

Me: "Why?"

Life: "Just humor me..."

(Like an idiot, I spread my feet to the requested distance)

Me: "Okay, now what?"

Turns out, "what" consists of life proceeding to spend the better part of a month kicking me straight in the proverbial nut-sack. I hate when that happens, and it has pretty much driven my bi-polar ass right into a swamp of emotional morass. I could reach a greater level of depression than I am already in, but that would probably involve a bullet to the head. Luckily, I have a few things in my life that will prevent that from happening.

• One, I have a kick-ass wife who is my rock. If it were not for her, I very well would have just said "screw it" and left the area with everything that has been happening.
• Two, I have three kick-ass kids (yes, I am counting the dog) who are more than worth sticking around for. 
• Three, I have a group of friends that keep my ass in check, and check in when I get the way I am now. Thanks, guys...
• Four, my access to guns isn't what it used to be. I can still get them, but it's more difficult than it used to be, and by the time I got ahold of one, my mood would change enough that I wouldn't need it anymore. Plus, I would remember a promise I made to myself just over 26 years ago and get some damn help.

As it stands, there are some aspects in my life that demand that I be a leader in order to right the various ships. I just don't know if I have the capacity within me to do that currently.

Completely changing the subject, on the musical front, a couple of  things happened to add to my depression, and one thing happened that has helped. First, two gentlemen from bands I have enjoyed for a long time passed away. Bob Casale (a.k.a. Bob 2) from Devo and Dave Brockie (a.k.a. Oderus Urungus) from GWAR have both shuffled off this mortal coil. I look to write pieces on both of them here soon. I just need to carve out the time and mood to do so. The good thing is that I finally acquired the new album from the reggae-metal band, Skindred, and it kicks ass! Kill the Power is one of the best discs to hit my player in some time, and I'll take all the small victories I can get at this point...

peace... GopherDave

What Am I Thinking..?

Another week has passed and the stabilizing continues... It would be easier if it were not the holidays, but one cannot always get what one wants...

Mood-wise, I'm still kind of meh. The games have been going "o-kay". The last Champions session didn't run due to inclement weather, and the last session of Tai'eres was down a player. Coincidentally, it was the player for whom the game was originally set-up. A few days after, this player drops from the game to run another a game himself, something which he expressly told me was the reason for begging anyone to run a game he could play in. At first I wanted to throat-punch him, but having been a LONG-TIME GM, I sort of understood. When the bug bites you with a game idea, it's hard to shake. On the plus side, he did find me another player to take his place. So... table-flipping rage averted by maturity and reciprocation. Who knew that could happen, hmmm?

As things go, life is not too terribly bad. They could be worse, honestly. General pressures aside, I am discovering I kvetch far too much, and am being productive far too little. I should change that. There were routines I followed that I have fallen out of. Good habits which kept me focused and directed that I have let drop by the wayside, and thus my behavior has been affected in negative ways. This blog is a good example of that. I used to write here once a day almost religiously. Now, it's lucky if it gets updated once a week.

Sounds like it's time for New Year's resolutions, except I've never been too terribly keen on those. So, I believe I am going to step back... adjust some things in my life... get back to where I once was. I realize I have been saying this a great deal lately. Time to own up, own it, and turn words into action...

-- GopherDave

Pits And Spirals...

It's been a bit, so I thought I would check in... The bleeding at the store has been slowed, but it has not been fully stopped. There are some other issues that are causing our woes that are not financial. I'm not certain how to approach these as they involve elements that are in delicate balance with other parts of my life. I lost one of these parts for an extended period of time a while ago, and nothing has made my soul ache more than that vacancy of being until things got rectified. I'm not certain I can go through that again...

In other news, there was a point very recently where I almost dropped my keys on the floor of the store and walked away. I have never felt more unappreciated in my own place of business as I did at that moment, and I am still not fully recovered from it. I am trying desperately to give our customers more of what they want in the way of events and regular games, but the overall response is that of  "no one caring" or "bitching that things aren't EXACTLY as they would like them". I'm not looking for people to be dancing in the aisles, but some acknowledgment that we are trying to make things even better than they have been before would be nice.

Currently I am encountering enough apathy from long-time regulars on some days that it is becoming difficult for me to care as well. Many folks are no longer showing up to things at the store because they are under the impression that what they like will always be there.... until it's not... Then they will whine and cry and moan and lament and they will blame me...

...and that is the point where I will either snap, or just not care enough to get angry...

Now, I am just stirring in the juices of my own self-pity, but there is some meat of truth in my soup of despair, and that makes want to curl up and disappear...

-- GopherDave

The Weight of the World...

Things in Gopherville are okay as they stand. My psyche is having issues, but that is nothing new at this stage. I'm not going to over it too much here. I'm just trying to vent a bit...

I've semi-fixed a missing item issue that cropped up yesterday, when said item was to ship. Turns out our order for the item got lost in the system and we were kind of s**t out of luck. That made me into Stab-Man for a bit, but as usual, I persevered and found an answer. The solution will be here in about four business days, but it beats waiting 2-4 weeks for a "potential" restock of said item.

The other issues going on are minor, but there are a lot of them. It's the collective weight that's making it difficult.

On happier news... I should be able to do some work on Tai'eres in the next day or so in anticipation of tomorrow night's run. We ended the very beginning "plot arc" of completing a caravan run through three villages. Next up, well... I have some ideas that need to be fleshed out.

One final note, I have been listening to a *LOT* of Ghost/Ghost BC lately, an odd band from Sweden whose Satanic tongue is planted VERY firmly in their collective cheeks. Ostensibly a metal band, this group sounds NOTHING like its image and/or origin point indicates it should. Take a 1970's rock groove, add King Diamond-esque high-range vocals (minus the screams), and make all the songs about the devil himself. Personally, I walk with God, but I am no longer a member of any church as I refuse to subscribe to any form of "groupspeak". The good Lord gave me free will and the ability to think for myself, and I aim to exercise those gifts to their fullest. Hence, I can enjoy "Satanic" rock'n'roll to my heart's content, for I know where my heart truly lies...

To Blog Or Not To Blog...

...That is the question I have been asking myself lately.

I first started this blog a couple of years back as sort of a "self-accountability" journal for a wardrobe upgrade. For over a year and a half, I pretty much stayed true to the idea. Over the past six months, with the move of the store and everything else, I have slid back into the t-shirt/jeans/shorts/sweats that I wore in the beginning. I really don't know what has been happening to cause this, though I have some ideas.

This past summer was hot... very hot. Hot enough that wearing the whole shirt/tie/sweater vest combo would pretty much cause me to melt in the seven to ten minutes it takes me to get to the store.

The move to a bigger store has me doing more behind-the-scenes work and less actual in-front-of-customer counter work. In fact, my work load has grown and shifted enough that I rarely have time to put on the entire outfit anymore. I barely have time to get out of bed and get to the store to start my day. The larger store also has me feeling a bit like a fish out of water. We've grown the new store to its current size, and we're proud of it, but sometimes I feel very ill-equipped to handle it. I'm not one to give up control easily, but I almost have to if I am to focus more on the business, and less on the storefront. None of this sits well with me.

I am feeling like I have taken on more than I can handle. Yes, we have more help than usual, but with more people in the mix comes more drama. Plus, it's bad enough that there is (and always will be) internal drama, but with a new competitor opening recently, it has created more EXTERNAL drama. I won't lie. I'm not a big fan of real-life drama. Make-believe drama is just fine. Hell, I *LOVE* make-believe drama. I'm a die-hard role-player...

F**K, that's it... I have stumbled over why I have been absolutely losing it for the last few months. I haven't been getting much role-playing in from the player's side of the screen. Shady's Terracide game has been sporadic over the last six months as work and health issues have beset him a bit, plus he's been busy converting the whole setting over to another game system for publishing again. The next time we are scheduled to play will be on the 28th of this month. The last time we played was on the 3rd of August. That will be *EIGHT* weeks between sessions, and given how sporadic things had been prior to that, it is no wonder I am losing my God-Damned mind. Have I mentioned that it is the only game I play in currently? I run two others, but Terracide is the only game I participate in as a player...

GAHHHHH... Writing as catharsis...

-- GopherDave

Coming Out Of Hibernation...

Okay... I've been away for a while. My apologies for that, but all the drama bombs I had spoken about previously pretty much paled in comparison to what has been happening lately... A great deal has happened as of late, much of which has had my guts tied up in knots.

I wish I could put things in nutshells to explain, but most of them are not short stories... Here are some highlights, though...

• Mostly due to the two of us being very much alike, I almost completely destroyed my relationship with my son. It is on the mend now, but it is not out of the woods, yet...
• We have another game store joining us in the confines of C-U. It is a franchise of a chain not known to be amiable to their competition. In this case I know one of the franchisees on a cursory basis, and we welcome healthy, friendly competition, as it makes the scene better as a whole. This does give us three game stores in the area, and I've never known the local scene to support that many for too terribly long. We shall see...
• In addition to trying to fix my Champions game, I am gearing up to run yet another set of games in my home-brew fantasy setting, Tai'eres. Yeah, because I have TONS of spare time lying around for that...
• One of my ex-roommates passed away in his sleep at the age of 52. We haven't been close for a while, but his passing was a blunt reminder of my own mortality. Stupid mortality...

In the middle of everything, I have become a big ball of stress, which makes me very prone to a heart attack. I have had heart issues all my life, and I can pretty much recognize when my heart is prime to start giving me problems. I am not where I was roughly fifteen years ago, but I am at a close enough stage where I could will myself into a heart attack should I desired to.

I did that a couple of times as an adolescent, with one time requiring defibrillation. I can say this with the certainty that comes from personal experience... Avoid being defibrillated at all costs. It sucks the high, hard one. Basically, every muscle in your body is electrically forced to contract simultaneously at the moment of shock, and let me tell you... That. Shit. Hurts.

So, as I have typed this, and writing has become catharsis, I have come to the resolution to care about only what I can control, which is the direction I take socially with my family and friends, how I react to adverse situations that require my attention, and the direction our business takes. Beyond that, well...

...it just isn't worth the stress and the energy...

peace... GopherDave

Currently *NOT* Abiding...

This morning started out on a... ubiquitous... note....

The boy came home to do laundry just as I went to step into the shower. Normally, this isn't a problem. We wash most things in cold water, and our water pressure is sufficient enough to handle both washing machine and shower at once. Today, he washed a blanket in hot water. In about five minutes after he started this my testicles were hanging out somewhere in my chest cavity trying to stay warm.

However, it gets better...

The blanket he was trying to wash is actually too large for our washing machine, and it gets wrapped around the agitator in such a way that it stalls the washer. Once I got done with what I had to do at the store, I went home to attempt to rectify the situation. It took me twenty minutes, but I managed to get the water-logged comforter out of the washer that was still half full with warm water. I also managed to coax the machine into a half-cycle to get it drained of water. I'm not certain if it's fully operational. I had yet another crisis to cope with...

My daughter's brand new laptop then decided to "twonk out" on her and not have a functioning mouse/touch pad. Just as I am getting things settled with the washer, she begins to lose her mind and melt down. Now I'm at a point where I am trying to get the girl to calm down long enough to let loose her death grip on the laptop so I can look at it and perhaps fix it. I manage to get her calm enough to let me have it before something else goes "horribly wrong" with it. Once I gave it a cursory examination, I poke a few buttons and it's as good as new.

The day before, both kids decided they wanted to argue with me over stupid things and then bail, saying *I* was an asshat and that I was wrong, and was frequently so, even if I never admitted such ever. On top of that, I had a couple of days with Loquacious where it seemed that everything I did (or didn't do) was wrong, and did nothing but annoy her.

Prior to the weekend, I was a giant ball of stress, anxiety, and depression due to a number of store-related things. Sunday and Monday did nothing to help the situation. I was within a hair's breath of rage-quitting life in general.

I know that as the father I am supposed to be more mature than this, and suck it up and keep slogging on. However, when the people who are supposed to be my partners in life basically treat me like persona-non-grata *IN MY OWN HOUSE*, it makes it very difficult to carry on. I also know that I should probably not put things on the public interwebs like this, but if I have no one else around to talk to about things that are bothering me, what else am I supposed to do?

Comment on this if you want... I'll likely not respond... Consider this a "dump-and-run" post...

It's about the only outlet I have left...

--Dave--