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...

----------

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.

-----------

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

Winter War Re-Cap (3 of 4)...

[NOTE: This entry was started of February 9th. Almost there, folks...]

Well, with two semi-successful runs down in the convention, it means we are at the halfway point and on the way down...

Saturday evening found me looking across the screen at five players, one of whom hadn't role-played in about fifteen years, all waiting for some X-Files-esque goodness. I don't think I disappointed...

----------

Vertigo Dreams (Modern-Day Horror)

It all starts with our players. They are agents of a secretive government organization known as Q-Division. They know that there are things that go bump in the night, and Q-D Agents are the ones who bump back.

Our story begins with tales of a new street drug called Sueno Crystal. The drug gives the user sharpened perception (think the color saturation from the movie Dredd during the Slo-Mo scenes, but without the loss of speed), as well as other effects that vary upon the user. Invariably, though, most long-term users experience a psychotic break. Those that do not end up dead talk of hearing voices and seeing "other worlds". Until that break happens, many of the users have been reported purchasing various innocuous items, mostly electronics but other stuff as well, and either shipping those items to or leaving them at a number of different drop points.

The latest victim is one James Lassiter, former 25-year police veteran turned private detective in retirement. As straight an arrow as it got, but he is currently locked up in the loony bin after turning into a raving lunatic from a forced dosage of SC.

The agents begin by trying to interview Lassiter. That... goes poorly. Mostly because Lassiter is making zero sense and blurting out sentences like "Jalapeno chair tile spark bacon corn door asphalt cream". In others words, complete nonsense.

Going to Lassiter's apartment, they find the place already tossed, with the computer tower smashed and the monitor shattered. Once the agents clear the place, Agent T (the "Tech" agent) gets to work and in short order, is extracting information from Lassiter's desktop. It turns out that Lassiter was working on a divorce case where the husband was suspecting the wife of infidelity. Turns out the husband was right, and the "happy couple" met regularly at a bar called "Love On The Rocks". Doing a bit more digging in the apartment, Agent P (the low-level psychic of the group) uncovers a cache of high-end digital video and still photo equipment. All of it has had it's internal memory wiped and any external memory storage that would used for the equipment cannot be found. On a hunch, Agent T digs further and finds photos taken at "Love On The Rocks" of two men, both well dressed, but otherwise looking very suspicious based on the sequence of images taken.

So, in an effort to cover more ground and cover all the bases, Agent P and Agent T go back to the office to run background and financial checks on the bar, the philandering couple, and the two suspicious guys. Agent D (the driver) canvasses Lassiter's apartment complex trying to further size up the victim and see if he left anything useful with a neighbor. Agent G (the goon) and Agent L (the Leader) went to Love On The Rocks to stake out the place and ask questions of the bartender. The bartender is giving off very vague and non-committal answers to Agent L's inquiries when Agent G spots our two well-dressed but oily gentleman entering in through the back way. Agent G goes to confer with Agent L on what they should do, and as he does so, gets made but the two guys. The suspects duck back the way the came (out the back), and after a few precious moments of discussion, Agent G follows them while Agent L heads out the front way. When Agent G hits the back he sees the larger of the two men standing outside of a waiting car. The big guy turns, gets angry and heads right for Agent G. The car speeds away, almost hitting Agent L as he turns the corner into the back alley, but Agent L thinks quickly and gets the license plate number. Melee ensues with Agent G trying to out punch someone who is getting stronger by the minute. In a desperate attempt to stop him, Agent L shoots the guy a handful of times and barely slows him down. Finally, Agent G lands a blow that knocks the goon out, and as he falls unconscious, his body begins to regress into a form much slimmer that what it began.

Taking the unconscious goon back to headquarters, a number of things fall into the place. The goon in question is on record as being a low-level enforcer for a low-level mafia group. Said group's territory is nowhere *NEAR* Love On The Rocks, so he's either moonlighting, or he's moved on to better things. Searching the now emaciated thug, finds him wearing a pinkie ring with a luminescent pale blue stone set in it. Analysis of the stone finds it to be pure, uncut Sueno Crystal.

Running the license plate number, the car is registered to an Alan Tourmaline, whose only known address is in the warehouse district of the city, and whose existence is only about six months old.

Going on a hypothesis of otherworldly mental possession, the agents theorize that even the cut version of the drug allows for some minor mental control of the subject, and thus is very dangerous. So, time to storm a warehouse.

The agents approach the warehouse in ubiquitous government panel van. They notice security cameras on the building, so any approach will be seen. The agents also notice goons loading up three vans with small equipment and three body bags?!? The mention of body bags throws the agents into action and no semblance of a plan is followed. The goons with the bags, though, aren't being paid enough to deal with federal men-in-black type of heat. They drop everything and run. The bags hit the ground with the sound of rocks and gravel. Agents L, G, and D approach the warehouse as Agents T and P inspect the contents of the bags and the vans. The vans are full of small rock tumbling and grinding equipment. The bags each contain on bipedal, crystalline shape. Upon touch, Agent P's psychic senses go off of the scale and she knows that things are very, very weird.

Entering the warehouse, Agents L and G find it mostly empty except for some cover in the back and the skinny sleazeball from the pictures wielding two pistols and now wearing a hat(?). Gunfire ensues with no one really hitting anybody for the initial few rounds. Agent D heads around the back way to find the back door already open... odd. However, he goes in anyway in an effort to cover "hat-guy's" means of escape should things turn ugly. Agents P and T join in the firefight, with Agent P psychically imploding hat-guy's chest. Due to the amount of bullets now heading his way, and a sucking internal chest wound, hat-guy takes enough hits that he determines escape to be the wisest course of action. As hat-guy reaches the door to take him out of the back, he sees Agent D, who then becomes frustrated as hat-guy is shot from behind by Agent T for the kill-shot.

Searching the now-dead body of hat-guy, the agents find what looks to be a metal spider-mount holding a chunk of Sueno Crystal attached to hat-guy's head. Staring at his guns, one looks to be a normal pistol, while the other fires needles of crystal. Further searching determines that Alan Tourmaline is still out there, having left out of the back door before the agents arrived.

[Summary: "Alan Tourmaline" was one of four aliens that crash landed on Earth about twelve months ago. Its three compatriots did not survive the crash. Using its considerable mental abilities to stay hidden, the entity was trying to find a way to escape Earth before being discovered. Doing a little research into human behavior, the entity discovered that powder from its dead compatriots had a profound effect on humans when used as a street drug. One, it got us poor apes high as kites. Two, it made *REALLY* susceptible to suggestion and mental domination. Thus, it started a small criminal empire in an effort to fund a new ship to escape the atmosphere. Simple, really...]   =P

----------

This was one of the coolest games I have run in a while, and one of the better story plots I had devised for the convention. Kudos to the group involved. They kept me on my toes...

-- GopherDave