Tomorrow's the Big Day

Gosh I haven't posted in a long time. The summer will do that to you. That and buying a house.

Tonight is my last night of not owning a home. Tomorrow, I officially become a home owner. That's a scary thought but it's exciting at the same time. I think this makes you grow up really fast, owning a home. The responsiblity seems to be overwhelming. I'm looking forward to the challenge though.

I'm taking a half day at work tomorrow. I'm going to do a final walkthrough of the house and the closing is at 12:00 PM. This weekend I'm going to the land of the weird (Ohio). Dan and Terissa and I are going to meet Alex in Columbus for a board game expo. I think it's going to be a lot of fun and there will be lots of fun games to play.

The first thing I have to do with my house is patch a few spaces in the walls and do some painting. I will be moving in very slowly. Housewarming gifts are always welcome...because I'll need lots!

Maybe you're wondering about what happened with that email at work? Nothing. My boss brought it up jokingly, but didn't make a big deal about it and nothing ever happened. That was scary though.

I'll post back after I have my new house!

FOUND

Today was a rollercoaster day. It started out good because I found my W2 this morning. Then at work someone starting mouthing off to me about buying a *Japanese* car. I don't deal well with ignorance in the morning so that made work get off to a bad start. The rest of the day at work was just boring and dull. Not a fun day.

But tonight was a special game night. Alex picked out "Wealth of Nations" which is a game of Economics. One must choose an area of a market to specialize in, try to obtain a monopoly in that market, and keep prices of things like food, power, etc. high. It's VERY strategic and involves no luck at all (not even a dice roll). So Paul, you probably wouldn't be good at it.

Overall he made us read the directions before we came tonight so we could get right to playing. The game lasted about 4.5 hours but it went by SO fast. I have NEVER felt such intense nervousness while playing a game in my life. My hand was visibly shaking at one point. Halfway through the game I mis-calculated a production phase and earned no money, and was barely keeping my head above water. I actually came out tied for 2nd which I was REALLY happy with. Alex only won by 4 points (He was at 111 and Dan and I tied at 107). I'm just happy I didn't hear any dumb comments about my strategy and scared them a little.

This Is Why

Some people told me they were disappointed in me, or that they would stop reading my blog because of my lack of posting (2 days worth). So I wanted to let you all know there is a good reason I did not post for the past two days. Those are:

Monday: It was Monday, and good TV shows were on
Tuesday: It was Earth Day - so I rode my bike

So that's why. I'm not ashamed. I went to game night tonight. I'm not sure if I'm just tired or grouchy, but it seemed to be one of those environments tonight that when you go to make a move, everyone has to analyze and critique was you just did...out loud. So you'd hear things like "Pshh, that was dumb" or "I don't even understand why you just did that" or "you're not making any sense". I like to think when I play a game I use a strategy, and I admit, my strategies usually are different from other people. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. What definately doesn't help is having people comment on your every move. So that's lame, don't do it.

Mystery In The Abbey

At Alex's tonight we played a game called "Mystery In The Abbey". It's very similar to "Clue", except you just have to figure out "who done it", not with what, or where. The only catch is it was a monk who did it, in a monastary, and there are 24 monks to choose from. There were 6 of us playing. It was getting close to the end, and Dan was very close to winning. However, someone answered a question and he yelled out "Damn! - now I have everyone crossed out...I did something wrong". I just smiled because I only had one person left - Brother Charles. Sophie yells out "someone made a mistake, because I also have everyone crossed off, so I'm just going to guess". So she guessed, and got it right, and it was someone I had already crossed off. So everyone looked over at me and said "Great Dave - you messed us all up". I did mess them up. For some reason in those murder mystery games I mark people off way to liberally. I'm not sure if I just have this gut feeling that they're not a killer, or what. It was fun either way.

I joined a small book club at work. We have our first meeting next Wednesday after work at someone's house. It's supposed to be very informal and fun. So I have a book to read before next week.

Aliens

Last night I was watching the Democratic Debate and the moderator asked Dennis Kucinich "Mr. Kucinich, it was written that you had an experience with a UFO, and were noted as saying you had a paranormal feeling when seeing it. Is this true, did you see a UFO?". He had a look on his face like "oh crap" and just started smirking and said "well, it was a UFO, I'm not sure if it was aliens or not". I thought that was so random and weird. Then they went back to asking normal political questions about education, healthcare etc.

Where in the world did that come from?

*continued* Alex did a good job hosting a halloween party/game night. We had lots of candy and good food like cut off fingers (cheese), Dracula soup, and eyeball jello. Oh and dirt cupcakes. It was a good time though.

Good Covers Bad

Bad: Smash Brothers has been delayed from December 3rd to February 10. Booooo!

Good: Kiki is coming to visit this weekend!

Good >>> Bad

Atlanta Is A Go

I'm going to Atlanta September 21-23 to meet Paul and Kiki for the AWA anime convention. I'm excited about going and I think the money is worth it for a fun weekend with them.

We had game night again at Alex's apartment. We played a game called "Ticket to Ride, European Edition". You basically built train tracks all around Europe and it was a lot of fun. We had dinner and desert there too. I enjoy doing that on Wednesday nights.

Today must have been douchebag day at work, but that's all I'm going to say about that. Hearing a loud F*ck! being screamed in a conference call was enough to make me want to go home before 5:00.

Game Night

I think Wednesday's from this point on are going to be "game night" at Alex's. He had his first one tonight and it was a LOT of fun. There were 6 other people there from work. He has a 2 bedroom apartment, so he sleeps in the little bedroom and has made the master into a gameroom. He made these really neat pictures on the wall of games, framed. He bought games like Scrabble, Clue, and Risk and laid them out like a game, then framed them, and hung them on the wall. We had pizza and played 3 games so it was a good time.

Now to weather. Since Saturday it has been rainy, in the low 60's, and windy. Well today it was like BAM HOT! It was in the high 80's and VERY humid from all the rain. I still don't think it's as hot as it's been in South Carolina, but it feels hot.

Maybe you know this, maybe you don't, but this weekend I'm going to see 20 dead Chinese bodies at a museum. I'll post more on that later.