This Might Be A Trend, Again...

 

I took the picture early Friday morning... It's currently 2AM Saturday...

Tired GopherDave is tired, again...

Basically, in nutshells, here are the scoops...

• Loquacious and I have been married 21 years now...
• I should not play Magic the Gathering early in morning. I make too many play mistakes...
• Calling the store at 2AM to get a card ruling is liable to make me grumpy and make me snap at you. Most folks have access to the Internet. Gatherer is a great resource. Please learn how to use it...
• I am glad that I have sleep-cameled for the last two days as I will have to be here roughly six hours after I leave...

That is all...

Three Days In A Row...

Okay... Things are starting to get back into rhythm, here...

Not much has happened over the last day or so other than some progress on resolving the issue regarding Skribl's car. Statements have been made and a check is on the way. When it arrives, we'll be transporting the car over to a body shop and getting the work done. So, that will be an actual resolved issue.

Today is also school registration day for the daughter. It is hard to believe that she will be a sophomore in high school. I remember when she was born, she fit nicely in the crook of my arm. She's turning into an amazing young lady and I am more surprised by her each and every day.

At the store, the MtG card reorganizing project proceeds slowly, but it does proceed. We are going to become less of a browsing store and more of a "deck-building" store where customers need to have more of an idea of what they want BEFORE they get here. Once we are done, if you know what you want, we will be able to tell you in short order if we have it or not. We are also not going to price cards any longer. Pricing is going to a dynamic model where we look up prices online when you buy the card. That way, if a price has gone up, we are not losing money, and if a price has dropped, customers won't be eating it, either. Transactions will take a bit more time, but it will be worth it in the long run.

Game-wise, work does NOT proceed due to other issues happening. They're major but nothing overly dramatic, and relatively easy to manage with some time, care, and attention paid to them. I just have to do so.

Time to go be me...

-- GopherDave

One Step At A Time...

Okay... Two days in a row has GOT to mean something, doesn't it? Although, yesterday damn near killed me as the temps went way above the forecast and hit the 97 degrees Fahrenheit area. Today isn't supposed to be as bad, but we'll see.

Got no gaming done last night, but I did help Loquacious with dishes. Seriously, we had all fallen behind in household stuff, and she was the only one trying to do anything about it. Bless her heart, she was doing her best, but she was getting frustrated that no one around her was helping, and the work was piling up faster than she could keep up. So, I did what I should have been doing in the first place and pitched in. Thing is, Loquacious deserves better than that from the kids and I, and last night was a humbling reminder. I've got a very special lady in my life that I have been married to for almost twenty-one years. I shouldn't take her for granted...

Other stuff is also going on, most notably Skribl's car got hit on Friday. No one was hurt. In fact he wasn't even in it. The car was parked on the street and someone backed out of our driveway and hit it when they did so. It's damaged enough that the driver's door will not open and is thus deemed "unsafe to drive". The person who hit the car is a friend of the family, and left us their information. Unfortunately, their insurance company is being difficult in certain areas, and nothing has really moved forward yet. It's frustrating.

At the store, we seem to have corralled all the virus issues on the point-of-sale machine, but we're going to keep it discreet and offline from here on out. To help with Internet issues, we went and bought a nice tablet. It's good and it will do what we need it to, but it is slower than we'd like, and doesn't quite have the full functionality we like. So we bought a store laptop as well. Now, two people can check card prices at once, and we have a machine that can run the ubiquitous WotC-designed tourney software as well, so we are not as reliant on MY personal laptop. We probably should have just gone with the laptop from the beginning, but we sometimes get hijacked to check card values while games are happening, and the tablet allows us that portability.

Until next time...

-- GopherDave

The Engine... She's Not Turning Over, Sir...

I wish the weather and my sleep schedule would decide what to do...

Both have been wonky as of late, but I'm hoping things get back to normal. I've been hoping that for a bit, but I am starting to see progress on that horizon. I'm at a point now where there is light at the end of the tunnel, though things keep happening that threaten to close it.

On the game front, not much work has been done on my end for Winter War, and it is getting to the point where I will start to feel the crunch of it here shortly. My mindset has been all tangled up in other things lately, and those items are just starting to get unraveled. I am hoping to take a look at things this weekend and get an idea of what exactly I have to do to catch up.

On the friend front, I went and hung out with my semi-estranged friend yesterday, and things seemed to go well. We didn't talk a lot about what was bothering each of us, but things were approached and we have a better idea of where each other stand. Overall, it was good, and a huge weight off of my mind.

With that major mental block pushed aside, I am hoping that the weather cools down enough to get back into the routine above, which means I can get some of my other routines back in order... like... blogging on a regular basis...

Toodles...

-- GopherDave

Checking In...

Okay, it's been a bit.

Basically, the heat wave that I had though had broken ramped up to hotter, but less humid over the past week. The outdoors felt like being in a blast furnace. That's no place for a sweater vest. Yesterday wasn't so bad, but I woke up so late I didn't have time for much else than a t-shirt and shorts. Sue me...

The weather forecast states that the heat has broken for about the five days or so, and I will take advantage of this to go back to the "uniform" I prefer to present to customers while at the store.

Things at the store are progressing slowly. I am finding my way back to actually doing stuff again after taking a mental break. I think it is because I do see a break on the horizon and am sort of (guiltily) looking forward to it that I am getting back into the idea of doing work. Work-wise, I had kind of shut down, just needing a mental break from things. It's hard to do that when I have employees who want to work on projects they feel need to be done, but I am not ready for that stage of work to happen yet. They chomp at the bit, and in doing so unknowingly antagonize me, the person who is actually trying to feel like SOMETHING is getting cleared off of the plate before we add another helping on. Eventually, there's too much proverbial food on the table and I finally go "I'm full" and step away from "eating" altogether for a bit.

It's not the best defensive mechanism. It's moody, uncommunicative, and generally leaves people wondering "WTF, mate"? It is however, the only defensive mechanism I have that does not involve me either...

A) ...screaming incoherently at people who don't deserve it...

and/or

B) ...randomly wandering the countryside killing hookers with a spoon...

Jus' sayin'...

-- GopherDave

The New Bat-Guy...

Tired GopherDave is tired...

Took the family to see the Dark Knight Rises last night. Many people around me thought is was excellent. I thought it was merely good. Here's why...

1) The core plot combines two of Batman's more recent comic story lines, Knightfall and No Man's Land. I love the Knightfall storyline, as it shows Batman coming back from adversity and defeating a foe that is a physical superior and an almost mental equal. I hate the No Man's Land storyline as it was rabidly stupid and no government would act the way the United States government was portrayed in that storyline.

2) I felt that while the movie was good, there wasn't enough Batman in it. A *TON* of Bruce Wayne, but not much Batman.

3) This movie really made me sit up and take notice about how discreet the DC Comics films are compared to their Marvel counterparts. Give the main situation happening in the film, I think Superman or Wonder Woman or Green Lantern, or even the Atom and/or Dollman would have dropped by and asked if Bats needed a hand.

To compare against another comic-book movie blockbuster...

The Avengers was a fantastic comic-book film. There was action, humor, tension, but best of all, the movie was fun to watch.

The Dark Knight Rises is an epic tale made with the tone of a (very) serious movie. It is a fine movie, and deserves the praise it is generating.

It just didn't seem like a superhero movie to me...

Your mileage may vary...

-- GopherDave

Bull In A China Shop...

I am currently a bit discombobulated... I have done some things to hurt someone close to me. I did not realize the extent of the damage I had caused as some of the things I did to cause the displeasure happened around six months to a year ago. In short, I feel like an ass. I am trying to arrange an opportunity to speak with this person to tell them how sorry I am in a face-to-face context, but understandably, they want some space.

As far as friends go, I am most definitely a double-edged sword. I can be fun, funny, loyal, and a blast to hang around. I can also be brusque, brutally honest, and oblivious to the feelings and positions of others. There have been times I have called myself "the friend that everyone needs, but no one wants to have". I call things as I see them, and I typically do not hold anything back. Doing so can reveal great truth to a person, but also expose them to great pain. When confronted about it, I tend to get more direct, and a tad belligerent about the whole deal. I have tempered how I act as I have gotten older, but have not changed it entirely.

As a result, my behavior has caused me to lose some very good friends that I have valued highly. It might have just done so again. Personally, I am hoping otherwise...

-- GopherDave