For all those who give me grief for the lack of updates, I'll say it again: I take weekends off (generally). Of course, that's really no excuse for missing Monday, but... The real reason I take weekends off is I have no discipline, especially on the weekends. To sit down and get the word gland producing just seems to be more of an effort when I can be doing anything else. Not that I spend my weekend time in a particularlly compelling or productive way. Matters are made worse by my effort as of late to avoid posting mundane nonsense. You know: "I got up, brushed my teeth, ate a bagel, called a friend, took a crap..." type of junk. Even avoiding those types of entries, the mundane-quotient of nosuch is already pretty high. Combine this goal with an overall feeling of malaise which settled in last week and I am suddenly facing a rather difficult obstacle to squeezing the contents of my tiny brain on to the web for your amusement. But the malaise has passed, so it's time to get squeezing.

More time at the divorce mediator's this weekend. My wife and I met to conclude what we started the week previously. This time went without any hitch, emotional or logistical, and in an hour, we were done. Now the mediator has all the information he needs to draft a seperation agreement. The bad news is he's backlogged so it'll be a few weeks before the agreement. The good news is that means I don't need to cough up $800 right away. One we get the agreement, we each look it over, have counsel / friends / nosy busy-bodies look it over, and if it's alright, we sign it. Then we are formally, and for all intents and purposes, legally seperated.

The divorce can be filed once we've been living apart for one year, which will be in July or August (I can't remember which.) We could file for divorce sooner, but it involves us signing an affadavit saying one of us has refused to have sex with the other, starting from some date a year ago. Such a statement is a slight stretching of the truth. Our mediator told us making such a statement in no way effects any aspect of the divorce. He also said what we decide to sign is up to us, but if we shouldn't tell him if it's not true, because of legal and ethical obligations, and so forth. Basically, he said, if you want a fast divorce in New York state, that's the way to go. My wife was interested in getting the divorce done quickly, so at first the two of us agreed this is what we would do. After thinking about it for a week, my wife decided that she didn't want to, well, exaggerate on an affadavit. Even though there is no way for anyone other than the two of us to know the last date we had sex is... Even though we both have to sign the same affadavit... I guess my wife is a more moral person than I am. But, to me, the date we file isn't hugely important, as long as it gets done this year. So, if she's happy with that date, I'm happy with it to.

We went for lunch afterwards. We had a few drinks with lunch, which is never a good idea, and both got a bit emotional. We each had a moment where a few discreet tears were shed, but we've learned how to pull out of that spin. We basically are both glad we were married to each other, which probably makes no sense to a lot of people. But it's true. This doesn't change the fact that we shouldn't be married any more though.

We were in the Fire House Pub, being waited on by a somewhat distracted waitress. She was pleasent and all, but seemed to be a bit odd, and her mind was definitely elsewhere. When it came time to pay the check, I gave her my credit card. In less than sixty seconds, my credit card was lost. This is not a huge restaurant. There are probably 15 paces between our table and the register, and a fifteen minute search did not find it. The manager came over and apologized, and took my phone number. I told him if they found it today to call me, otherwise I would cancel the card and get a new one. Unfortunately, this is also my bank card too, which meant no getting cash either. I knew they had incentive to find it, since they wouldn't get paid without it. By the time I got home, a few hours later, they had called and found it. Still, quite a nuisance.

I spent a fair amount of time in Alchera learning the GM ropes. Now I know why most events in Clan Lord aren't very good. Doing anything, I mean anything, as a GM is huge amounts of work, lots of preparation, and challenging to execute. The in-game tools are nothing but the most fundamental, and often times you just can't do what you want. In order to become a good GM, you have to spend hours crafting macros to make up for the lack of tools. And forget making up anything on the fly! The interface is down right hostile, and if you're not prepared in advance, your doomed. For those of you Alchera players, please bear with me. While some of the events I've done have had their share of gaffs, mostly those gaffs are cosmetic. All and all, I think the events have been fun for the players, and have been fair. I do not do events where almost everyone involved spends all of their time on their backs fallen. Also, the events try to follow a certain logic (and that logic just isn't "kill all the players and gloat.")

I also spent a bit of time clanning. I've been carrying Mug's serial number for awhile now, and I finally realized I just don't need it. Mug doesn't play any more, so he told me to loot the account if I want, which yielded quite a lot of good stuff. Finally Savior has a sunstone and cad! I plundered all his secondary characters (and gave one away), thus freeing up some slots. Now, I do plan on killing the serial number, but Mug has a gold shirt and gold pants, and since DT is going to allow clothing to be sold soon, I figure it might be worth holding out for awhile. So, what should I do with those extra slots? Enter Dopey, Sleepy, Grumpy and Sneezy. They are newbies working in the copper mine. I also put some other characters in there as well, for a total of 6 characters in the mines. I'll be curious to see how much coinage it will yield. If each character makes 4c a day, that's almost 25c every 24 hours for doing nothing. Maybe I'll keep Mug's serial number and buy 10 more characters...

Nori was figuratively cracking the whip over the long weekend. Things with the Nox Sorora are getting quite active, and she made it clear I've got to start coming through on commitments I made to her. I did spend a fair amount of time writing up content for some mailings that need to be done, as well as getting content for the Nox Sorora intranet site ready. One thing I'll say, after writing down all the various people involved, I never realized how many people are either in the Nox Sorora, or regularly interact with it. It made me realize that in Clan Lord, the single largest "religion" is the Nox Sorora. Sure, there are a few others, but I think it's fair to say the Nox Sorora is the most active and most talked about. The irony of it all is that Nori is one of the least religious person I know (perhaps I am more so). I suppose that makes sense, though. A very religious person would never dream of making up a religion in the game, for religious reasons of course.

I have my ticket to Munich now. I am really looking forward to that trip. The best part is that Conny and I will be travelling together too, since she'll be coming here before hand. These past few days there are times where I find myself really missing her. It's not a painful thing, usually, but more of a sudden realization that I there's no one I'd rather be with more. And it usually comes out of the blue, too.

There are few new blogs gestating. I'll link to them after they've had a chance to get up to speed. All are done by people I consider interesting, and both are done by people who play Clan Lord (huge surprise, I know.) Perhaps these blogs will fill the gaping void left by James' silence...
posted 11:12 AM | link |