Nancymarie’s House

Newfie!

We didn’t get to the con until 11ish this morning. We hung out in the dealer room, Empath playing a LAN game of Jedi Academy and me watching. The first match, he worked the rust off his fingers. The second match, he was in the top 3 playing as Mon Mothma. He got targeted a lot because the boys don’t like being beat up by a “girl”. I wanted to get a book by Louise Bohmer, The Black Act. After getting my hands on a copy and reading the blurb on the back, I bought it and had it signed. We also got a picture signed by Christian J. Simpson and a separate pic of the three of us together. A con volunteer took the photo and mentioned we weren’t to touch Christian, though he put an arm around each of our shoulders. I wonder how many ass pinches and gropes he’s endured. Later in the evening, I saw several (thinner) girls/women putting an arm around him.

After taking off for lunch, we returned and Empath jumped on the Xbox to play Force Unleashed. I sat beside him to watch and noticed a little boy, about 5 y/o, on my right playing Lego SW 2. This kid could only sit still for 3 seconds before he jolted to his feet and bopped around. He was very talkative and my attention split between the pair. We stayed until the dealer room closed. Empath asked for a photo with Vaughn, which I took, and he bought 2 music cds after learning Vaughn had a band. I’ve only heard one song, but I like what I hear.

Things were swapped around. The costume contest was moved to 7p, but we hung around for it. Empath took many pics. He got shots of each contestant and the winners. The under 12 category was a tie, so all got a prize which is fair considering they’re kids. The winner of the adult category was Harvey Dent. We were pretty comfortable and decided to dress up next year as Zoe and Wash from Firefly. Hopefully, we’ll lose weight before then. I really don’t want to be a fat Zoe.

I’m waiting for Empath to get done spreading his convention news to his fora, then I’m begging for pics to be transferred. You can check my Twitpic link later to see them.

Sci Fi on the Rock is this weekend and we bought weekend passes for each of us. Incidentally, we stuck with orange paper bracelets on our wrists until tomorrow night so we can visit whenever we like.

The lower floor had the dealers’ room. We were there fairly early at 10a and cruised around all the booths. Empath impressed himself by guessing (just from the game developer logo) what PC game was being loaded for the LAN game (Jedi Academy). Empath paid out a reasonable amount for 2 autographs – Peter Mayhew and Vaughn Armstrong. Empath was able to ask a question he’s been wondering about concerning Peter: did he have scripted lines? He did, but it was more of his response to what the other actors were saying. I talked with Vaughn, telling him even though his character in Enterprise wasn’t a bad guy, I still hate him. He’s done a lot of stuff with several ST series. The autographed pics can be seen on my Twitpic account.

The place got very busy around noon-five. There were people dressed up: Two-face, the goddamn Batman, Captain America (female), He-Man (thank God he wasn’t She-Ra), Solid Snake, a snow trooper and Jango Fett (Empath provided commentary on the differences between Jango and Boba’s armors). People were posing with them for pictures. I don’t have the guts to do that.

We left for a quick lunch at Dairy Queen and returned to watch a fan film called Star Wars: Inner Demons. It was filmed locally and pretty good. The fx were as good as any studio could make and the script was interesting. The same company is making another fan film this summer: Stargate meets Dr. Who.

The pain-in-the-ass portion of the day came when I tried to open a Nintendo Super Mario Bros. 1-up mushroom. After 3 hours of playing with the damned thing, I wiggled the mushroom top from side-to-side and it came off, spilling a small amount of candy on the floor. When I couldn’t get the lid off, it was no biggie since I bought it because it’s super cute. Now that I’ve tasted the candy (sour apple), I like it more. I can hide change in it when the candy is gone!

After supper, we went back to a pretty empty hotel. Empath went to the cantina for filk singing while I listened to an author talk about dark fantasy book genre. My talk got finished in an hour, so I wandered over to the room with the cantina. The door was shut and I didn’t want to try to sneak in, make noise with the door and disturb people. I lounged in a comfy chair until I found myself falling asleep. Other people were going in and out of the room and someone had propped the door partially open. I got in and found Empath near the back. I sat down beside him during the open mic moment. The songs were good. A word sheet was provided so we could all sing a long.

Here’s the obligatory Newfie reference, just for that blog.

I made up a family of 8 Sims with free will turned on and am waiting to see how they all die. I’ve provided them with the basics – a house with 2 full baths, beds, stocked kitchen, tv and seating – and it’s up to them to keep themselves alive. Should one or more of them get jobs and money starts coming in, I’ll upgrade and/or buy more items, such as a bookcase, painting easle, better beds, etc..

The reasoning stems from one of my other Sims. He went out on a date and ordered food at a diner. After 6 hours of in-game time and his hunger, bladder and energy all at red slivers, I left without being served and he passed out in a bowl of cold cereal at home. Oh, and he’d rather bitch about not having any fun as he pisses himself instead of using the toilet LIKE I TOLD HIM 5 TIMES!

ION, excitement tomorrow as I take Empath on his first convention, Sci Fi on the Rock. Peter Mayhew is the big ticket star. We’re debating on whether to bring something for him to autograph or not. Empath has original prints of 1970s Star Wars comics (before Luke was a Skywalker), the 2 SW Lego games (both with Chewie) and we share ownership over the 25th anniversary dvd SW set. I have the vhs video set, too. I don’t want to look like a retard asking Mr. Mayhew to sign a Lego game when he hasn’t done it for anyone else.

Today, we made these no-bake, peanut butter and oatmeal cookies. They are very sticky and have to live in the fridge. I guess that’s from the ingredients being stale and possible humidity in the air.

Other thing we did was get into a Forgotten Realms module at Loudwater. I’m handling 4 PCs and Empath is handling 2. We use the DDI Character Builder for the character sheets and power cards. My biggest complaint is the character sheets ignore certain weapons for calculating damage. For example: my invoker using a sling for ranged attacks and a dagger for melee. The Builder only uses the dagger for both melee and ranged attacks.

My husband and I are sitting quietly on the couch, the stillness of the air occasionally disturbed by the snick of scissors as we cut out 2×3 rectangles from sheets of printer paper. “We are such nerds,” Empath says to me.

I look up from my work and ask, “Why?”

“It’s 2 a.m. and we’re cutting out DnD power cards.” I shrug and slide Lo-Kag’s Earth Spikes encounter card into a clear plastic penny sleeve.

I love my Newfie husband.

After reading the front page story in The Scope while waiting for my pizza to cook, I decided to target Newfie In Use to see if this post will be “tracked” by Mayo.

Newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie,

Newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie,

Newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie,

Newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie,

Newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie,

Newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie,

Newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie,

Newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie,

Newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie, newfie.

Reading Hal’s post on the Peep Diaries (and my comment there) got me to thinking about my own experiences in the fast food industry. I never did anything gross to or with a customer’s food, no matter how much of an asshat s/he was being when they ordered. I did give people “extra” out of spite though.  Extra pickles on your burger? Is 30 okay? Extra gravy on your hot beef? How about brimming to the edge? Extra mayo? You can’t even see the sandwich now. Weird stuff happened in the kitchen, but nothing that knowingly affect the quality of the food.  One of the teenage cooks decided to drop a whole apple in the deep fryer to see what happened. It exploded, naturally. Same place, different cook – while changing the oil in the fryer,  the cook found a metal blade from a dough scraper. Just the blade, no handle.

This got me thinking about the 2 times I was kicked out of the Sierra theater video store for voicing an opinion. A friend and I were looking to rent a movie for the night. We talked/argued over which one to get when the then-owner, Marilyn, told me to leave. All I’d been doing is talking about which I’d seen or not and whether I thought it was worth seeing (again). Everyone does that in every video shop. It happened a second time a few months later. Marilyn was always a bitch to my family, something between she and my mom I think.

My hijinx were mostly limited to petty things I didn’t get into (much) trouble over.

Mostly.

I got to thinking about word replacement again and decided to try it with song titles.

Live and Let Grandpa

Holding Out for a Grandpa

Grandpas Just Wanna Have Fun

Baby Got Grandpa

Grandpa of the Band

Bat Outta Grandpa

Life’s a Grandpa and I Want My Money Back

Dirty Grandpas Done Dirt Cheap

Grandpa Back

Today’s Easter. Nothing special on my end, in a quasi-religious way. I did find out the Easter is based on the moon’s cycle rather than a set date. Nice to see the paganism shining through.

So, I went to get a water bottle from the fridge and found a gold coin on top of my cottage cheese tub. I moved it, not thinking of the consequences. As I went about my morning ablutions, I found more coins on my computer desk, under my toothbrush and in my panty drawer. This bothered me A LOT. It’s one thing to leave candies in the living room or kitchen, but to go through your DIL’s panties to hide a couple chocolate coins …??? Yeah, the culprit is my MIL. I’m more than normally paranoid now about her sneaking around our bedroom. I’m laying traps from now on. Tonight, I’m going to do some payback with her little coins. It’s not that she got something for me, but that she snuck around our underground home and did God-knows-what!

Empath and I had sex this morning, way after MIL would’ve been skulking about. Neither of us could remember the last time we had sex. It was really good, but I am so out of shape. Imagine that: too fat to fuck.

Empath is in a real bitchy mood tonight. I was trying to listen to the Bob and Tom show for Tuesday. Tom isn’t a favorite of either of us, but he so got under Empath’s skin. Empath would bitch in his larangetic voice, causing me to not be able to hear what was say while he talked. I let it go for a while since I was doing it myself, but the point came where I didn’t want to hear my husband gripe any longer. I mentioned he should cancel the VIP subscription and he thinks it’s a good idea. Oh well, no big I guess.