My Thanksgiving, or why I will not get to see my family this year.

So, Its the holiday season again.

Woo.

I mean it, I really do. Its the time when I can go and see all my busy, old, far away relatives and catch up with their lives. I can get some fond memories of them while they are still around, and enjoy some seasonal food while it is fresh, and nostalgic.

Wait, I work in retail.

Nevermind.

The retail store I work at is only closed 2 days a year, Christmas and Thanksgiving. It closes then so that its employees can go get some time with their families. But that rings just a little hollow when because of the days immediately after each one. I cannot go see my old, or far away relatives. I mean, its not like my grandparents are old or anything, I mean they're supposed to live forever right? Its not like people in their eighties are just dying off. Its not like people who are old and or fraile have a higher mortality rate in the winter because of the cold or anything.

But at least I can go see my parents this year, and go get some good food and entertainment before I work through 12 hours of angry guests. Wait, some of them are headed out to see the family thats far away, so I guess I can only see one small chunk of my family this year...

again.

Wait, every major retail chain this year has announced that they will be opening their doors at 8 pm Thanksgiving night. So, it looks like I now get to run a shift from late Thanksgiving to early Black Friday.

So, in order to survive this shift, I will need to sleep while the family who is close enough to me for me to visit them is eating.

So my thanksgiving this year:

• Cannot see my aging grandparents who are too far away.
• Cannot see my sisters or their families, who are living close to the above.
• My dad is almost assuredly going out to see every one above, which leaves me out again.
• I have to sleep through the meal my mom is making this year, so I can:
• Say up over night and deal with customers who will be upset because we ran out of deal x
• or want us to honor coupon y, even though it doesn’t apply to what they want.
• or who are mad at me personally, that I made them get up and shop at the ridiculous hour of 11:45 PM on Thanksgiving evening.

Because I get a choice in all of those options.

Its true, I do. I can also chose to tell my boss “I quit” go and become a hobo. Its not like I need my pay to make ends meet. Or to feed myself or my wife. or for rent so I can stay warm and dry through the winter season.

Or I can work when I’m told too.

The simple fact is:

Companies know that they can open the doors whenever with an amazing sale to get more customers.

Customers know that Companies are going to put out the best sales on Black Weekend.

This vicious cycle of malignant consumerism has pushed my thanksgiving from a holiday where I get to see my family like my employer's “intended” by not being open that day. To a holiday where I have to not see anyone I really care about because I have to sleep through it. So I can work .

Some might ask, What about Labor Day? Well obviously leading question aside, it’s Monday. Really, its the day I go to work and do labor. I know it was intended to be a day where laborers get the day off, but I have somehow always been doing labor on labor day. Weird huh?

Now, before this grows much longer, Here’s the point.

Don’t feel sad about missing me. When you're passing the rolls around the table, eat one for me. I miss my family so much, but there’s really nothing I can do to see them right now. I know that they are missing me, and I am always welcome. But I need to keep working to survive, so its off to work I go. Until the vicious circle ends however, this is the way it will be.

For Science! and card games

So, I was looking around and found one of the card games I have been building. Its called For Science! and its based on each player building a crazy machine or creature, and scoring points off of it.  here is a snippet:

The game “For Science!” is a 2 to 5 player card game where each player tries to build as many crazy inventions as they are able. The game starts with each player choosing a field of science, that they haven been banished from. The goal is to build as many inventions as you can to show those fools your not mad, but that it can be done! Whoever has the most points wins.

The contents of the game include:

1 10 sided die

5 Science Discipline cards

25 Base cards

60 Mad Science cards

Begin by choosing the Discipline that scorned you. They are:

1. Biology: You could have worked on anything as long as it was living. People, Animals, Plants, Microorganisms.
2. Robotics: You Spend your time making metallic constructs that might or might not have their own personal Artificial Intelligences. Expect Nano-Robots, Power suits, and Robots.
3. Physicist: You work with the fundamental rules of the universe. You make Atomic Weapons, attract meteors, and mess with all sorts of Quantum singularities.
4. Chemist: You work on chemical reactions to do whatever you need it too. Imagine explosives; Super strong acids, Drugs, and toxic chemicals galore.
5. Mind/Matter: You were a psychologist, but those fools declared you went outside the bounds of science! Your chief weapons include Fear, mind control, telekinesis and telepathy. (What? Its not like you’re the Spanish Inquisition or anything).

Anyway, its a ton of fun, and I want to finish it up and get maybe a playtest going around for people to try.

Wait, I have a blog? Right: Tabletop games.

So, blog o sphere...

Look, I know we haven't talked in ages. So I know you must think I don't like you or something. but I think we can do this: I think we should get the band back together!

So: on topic, I finished my teir 4 Baldur The Stonecleaver list 35 pt list.

Wait, I play Warmachine/Hordes?

Yes I do. I have a rant being made for that for later. Its to long and I will be going way off tangent. Suffice to say I have got all of the Circle Oroboros models I could ever want and the Army is both fun to play and visually appealing. I think I will even post some pics when I have them painted.

I am also workng on getting some forest zones put together and painted for the army. They get to make trees mid battle, which just super messes with enemy battle plans. I plan on painting the tree bases to match the bases of the rest of the models in my list. It should be super awesome.

Next time: Gaming company rant, or imperial guard model rant. Dunno which, but I plan to work on this blog consistently and see where it goes.

Stupid WoW

Once in a great while I actually go back on my word. I am back playing Wow again after 2 months because I cannot get any of the people I play with including my wife and her brother ( who both love War I might add) To play War. It comes down to the fact that an MMO with no-one you know is bland and boring. Also, They would continue to spend several hours talking about Wow whenever we would hang out... Any point I bring up from War, got glossed over. Not their fault precisely, but when my biggest comment I can include in an evening is the phrase "Well, Griftoof's new ability is called 'Right in Da Jibblies!' " It doesn't help me have allot of fun with my friends.

New plan: Play WoW. Maybe play another genre entirely if Wow stays relatively bad. One thing I will probably regret though, is that War has less people while being a far better game. Everyone admits this. Even people still playing Wow. But no one wants to change over. How does that work? Its like they don't want to lose their max level characters... But they spend 95% of their time playing the low level characters they have, because they are bored with their maxed ones.

Eh... Rant rant.. Moan Moan. Bitch Bitch.. Time to go Kill things with Moon-Nukes.

Brain-dead Super Rant

So, last night I spent the whole evening with some friends doing several of our RPG campaigns. First there was The Dragon Blood one. Basically, since the last installment online here, we lost our home town, been getting slowly stronger, and finally, we just had our mentor and only real protection in this game die before our very eyes. ( Well, My character didn't, but that's his own fault). In any case, This point has the world starting to hit the proverbial fan. (With included proverbial poop). We are now fleeing southwards with no immediate goals towards finding our lost party member, Though our mentor kinda got better. At least he didn't actually die. Thanks to the healy member of the group.

Moving on. After some o the group had to leave for school the next day, The rest of us moved on to another RPG, Namly Dungeons and Dragons. With a simple hack and slash combat going on, we spent a while making sure we had some fun time to burn down. This game really ended this morning, about a half hour into mindnight.

Which brings me to the brain-dead par of this thingy: Either my face or my brain feels like swiss cheese, I cannot tell which. Luckily, work is kinda slow today so I don't have to worry about much at once. As glas as I am on having friends who enjoy my intrests as much as I do, 5 hours of sleep seems to be mostly grating on me anymore. This whole morning has been spent in zombie vision. I can qualify this as a rant for the simple fact of how I keep draging this thing on with no direction or point. oh, hey. I'm done now. Time to go off to find brains, I mean Mt. Dew.

Serves me right!

Here I am. I just had the most awesome Idea for writing an RGP. System, Universe, everything.

All I need now is free time.

Blasted free time.

I blame the Androids

I'm sitting here at work, thinking of how I want to start this off. My friend gave me a good idea with which I will follow. If only I had a freaken idea to start on.

The idea is a 30 minute story. I think I can do that. I will just have to start tommarow. See, the whole idea and everything comes from within that 30 minute period.

Oh well, Tommarow expect a great short story. Or some other sort of hack writing I'm much more likley to be doing.

Either Way good times.