Wander Weir |
Merry Christmas, all! This house is about five miles from ours, and I love it! :D
Merry Christmas!
I must say, that house is impressive. My wife and I went on a drive tonight to look at the lights and none of them came anywhere near that.
Joana |
It's even more impressive in real life; it looks smaller in the video, and it's a huge house. There's a loop of six different songs the lights are choreographed to, and there's lights on the sides and back of the house, too. I can't even imagine what it must have cost them; they started "construction" right after Halloween. I feel like I ought to send them a thank-you card after the holiday season. :)
Nazard |
It's even more impressive in real life; it looks smaller in the video, and it's a huge house. There's a loop of six different songs the lights are choreographed to, and there's lights on the sides and back of the house, too. I can't even imagine what it must have cost them; they started "construction" right after Halloween. I feel like I ought to send them a thank-you card after the holiday season. :)
Or sympathy cards to all their neighbors!
Merry Christmas all.
God bless us, everyone!
Navior |
Alas, even Nazard hasn't heard from me for a couple of days (until now that is). However, I'm back!
I've had an eventful few days. As I mentioned, I was away visiting family, and while I warned that posting would be sporadic, I didn't expect it to be quite so non-existent.
My brother and his partner brought their dog along with them. While she's basically, a good dog, she can be a bit of a trouble maker, has huge amounts of energy and a number of anxiety issues. She seemed to take a great deal of a dislike to my nephew (my sister's oldest son) and was constantly growling and nipping at him. She outright bit him during dinner on Christmas day, so that was interrupted with a trip to the hospital. It was actually not very serious and hugely overblown by my nephew (he's something of a drama queen and has huge anger management issues; the very next day, he got thrown out of the local mall for throwing things at the cashier when the item he was trying to buy price-scanned incorrectly).
But that wasn't the end of things with my brother's dog, Scooter. My two dogs (Pan and Frey) are generally pretty good at keeping her under control. They growl at her a bit and she backs away, only to try coming at them from a different direction. After a few more growls and tries, she gives up for an hour or two. (She was a rescue from the streets where she had been abandoned as a puppy, and so she was never properly socialized with other dogs. My brother has had her for about nine years now, but she still doesn't know how to behave around other dogs.) However, on Monday morning, as I was going to feed my two, Scooter managed to get between them. Pan rounded on Scooter, who took off in flash. Alas, that meant that Pan accidentally got Frey instead, and my two boys ended up in a fight, which ended up with Frey getting a torn ear. (At least, I think that's how things happened. It was all over so quickly, that it was mostly a blur, so it's possible the bite which tore Frey's ear came from Scooter, but I'm pretty sure it was Pan.) So we took him to the Veterinary Emergency Clinic, where they sewed him up and released him back to us in a drugged-up state. I then spent the next couple days monitoring him non-stop to make sure he didn't scratch at the bandages.
This morning, I took him in to our regular vet to have the bandages removed and to discover that his ear is now infected. Our vet was appalled at the terrible job done by the emergency clinic. (Truly, she had some pretty scathing language to use about them.) They had to clean out his ear, which in its tender state, did not go over well with Frey. I have never heard him howl and cry so pitifully and loudly.
Anyway, he's now on powerful antibiotics and pain killers, and has to wear a cone to stop him from scratching at his ear. He's finally sleeping peacefully at the moment, so I have some time to spare! Yay!
I'll get the games updated as soon as possible. Sorry for the delay. :)
Joana |
Didn't mean to nag, but glad everything is (relatively) okay. Hope your dog gets to feeling better soon.
(File all of the above under Why I Am a Cat Person... not to mention Why I Avoid Family Get-Togethers. ;) )
Navior |
Yeah, my wife and I avoid family get-togethers, too, and those we go to, we try to keep as short as possible. We were at my parents' from Friday to Tuesday, which was somewhat longer than we might have preferred, but much shorter than my parents would have liked. :)
Navior |
Yes, the cone of shame. :(
Luckily, he doesn't have to wear it all the time. He can go out for walks without it (although no vigorous exercise with other dogs), and any time he's being monitored, he doesn't have to wear it. It's really only when he's left alone that it has to be on.
Once the ear has healed a little, he won't need it anymore. The pain of a single scratch will be enough incentive not to do it anymore. :) That would be true now, too; however, at the moment, a single scratch could tear it all back open again and we can't risk that. So, cone of shame it is for a few days.
Wander Weir |
My cat. :)
Pretty cat! Looks like trouble too. :)
The funny part is that one of my cats is black and also named George. Yours looks quite a bit like her.
Navior |
My cat. :)
Very sweet. :)
I suppose I should show off my boys:
Pan is somewhat prone to funny poses, so here are a few humorous shots:
Pan laughing
Pan lying on his back upside down
Braaaains!
And just so Frey doesn't feel left out, here's another one of him, looking regal.
Wander Weir |
So why do you have a girl cat named George, Wander? Shouldn't she be Georgie? or Georgeanne? ;)
Technically, her name is Georgina. But I like to call her George because when we first got her she was all of 10 weeks old. So we'd hug her and pet her and squeeze her and call her George. So for me, George is her true name.
Joana |
My son has this book with photos of different dog breeds in it, and I was thinking whippet. (That's his favorite.) They're smaller than greyhounds, though, I think.
Didn't name one Santa's Little Helper, then? ;)
Similar inspiration for my George, Wander. I wonder how many animals are named George due to Steinbeck as funneled through Bugs Bunny. :)
Navior |
Whippets are smaller than greyhounds, yes, but otherwise look the same. Then there are the Italian greyhounds, which are the miniature versions. They're tiny, but rather adorable.
No, didn't go with Santa's Little Helper. :) It's easy to laugh at that name, but it's actually quite accurate for a racing greyhound's name. They have some of the strangest names out there. Frey's racing name was "Peaceful Snow", which is probably the least out-there racing name I've encountered. Pan's was "Room for Change". I've had two previous greyhounds, whose racing names were "Turbo Twang" (whom I renamed Hermes) and "Mitch's Racey" (whom I named Cinder). Following from Hermes, my wife and I decided to go with mythological themes for naming our dogs, thus Pan after the Greek God, and Frey after the Norse. :)
Joana |
Thoroughbred horses all have weird names, too. It must be a racing-culture thing. Did they not get confused when you changed their names? Or are they not used to responding to their racing names in the first place?
I have a thoroughly unrelated question you might know the answer to: Did they release different American and British versions of "The Impossible Astronaut?" I got the season 6 DVDs for Christmas and watched it last night, and I can't imagine why Rory would call what Canton Everett Delaware III brought to the lake "gasoline" instead of "petrol."
Navior |
They were never used to responding to their racing names. They presumably each had a "call name" that they responded to, but that's not on any of the documentation. They adjusted to their new names pretty quickly. Well, Pan did. Frey took a little longer. Pan is considerably more intelligent than Frey.
I'm not aware of different versions of "The Impossible Astronaut". However, I never noticed the "gasoline" line before. That is a bit strange. I have heard of British shows that sell well in the States deliberately avoiding British terminology--later seasons of The Avengers did this (using words like "apartment" instead of "flat") because the purchasing American network felt the British terms were confusing American viewers--but I've never known Doctor Who to do it. It's possible "gasoline" is a term that's becoming more used in Britain. I don't really know.
Navior |
Okay, just did some searching on the Gallifrey Base forums, and the line definitely did not go unnoticed by British viewers, so there weren't different versions. There are suggestions that Rory was either just reading the label or he was trying to be touristy and sound American, but not really succeeding (thus why he uses "gasoline" instead of just "gas"). I haven't found any official explanation.
Wander Weir |
Hey guys,
I'm away from home for New Years and i originally thought it wouldn't cause a problem with my posting but it turns out that the place I'm staying has very spotty internet service. It took me almost fifteen minutes to access this page, much less however long it's going to take my post to actually go through. So I might be slow to respond until Monday.
Sorry about that! Happy New Year!
Navior |
Ameiko Kaijitsu aka Navior wrote:She places a basket of fresh bread on the table. "Tea coming right up," she says to Tevyn.No smile? Do I need to do more than get the DC on the charisma check?
My apologies. I completely missed that you even attempted the check. Somehow, my eyes skipped the entire last line of your post. She'll give you the smile when she returns with the tea. :)
Joana |
Sorry, Wander; I've just now taken a good look at your background and description, looking for Tevyn's age, and noticed that he takes steps to hide his elven heritage. She only thought the bit about him being part-elf and didn't say anything out loud so you can pretend it's not there and she's just wondering if you've heard the rumors. I suppose she could make a Perception check vs. your disguise, but odds are she wouldn't make it. 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 1 = 9
Wander Weir |
No problem, Joana. I forgot to provide you a description when Corinna first showed up. He hasn't disguised it all that well, really, and it's not all that far-fetched for Corinna to have heard of the half-elven kid who spent a lot of time in the swamps and forests during his youth.
Joana |
My favorite ever watch-setting story: I was running a game for two PCs, a pair of paladins fresh out of paladin school and assigned to serve a temple of Pelor together. The priests sent them on a diplomatic mission to make friendly contact with a barbarian tribe that had wandered within several days' journey of town, and one of the priests came along. I rolled randomly to determine which cleric was going on the trip, and the one whose number came up had taken an oath of silence and communicated by gestures and writing. So, first night on the road, the cleric who is trying very hard to be nice to the fledgling paladins offers to take a watch. The PCs turn to each other, shrug, and say, "Sure, why not?" I'm thinking, "Really?" but don't say anything. So, sure enough, I roll a random encounter, and it's during the mute cleric's watch. The paladins are awakened by being attacked (by wolves or something like that, I believe) with the cleric, who had been surprised, waving wildly in their direction while he fights off another.
The players were so mad at that NPC. But when I stopped laughing, I pointed out they were the ones dumb enough to let someone they knew didn't speak take watch. I still tease my husband (one of the players) about that one....
Wander Weir |
That's pretty hilarious. A mute priest on watch...ha, crazy.
My long-spanning and now long-distance group has a thing where whenever someone on watch rolls poorly on their perception check, it's automatically assumed that they've fallen asleep. More than once the PC on watch is sleeping when the party is attacked and has slept through the entire battle.
Joana |
So Malan and Melon on first watch. Perhaps Tevyn and Rajah second, and Gilfroy and Corinna third? Any objections?
Do you light a campfire?
Rajah requested the last watch. Also, I'm not sure it's wise to put Corinna and Gilfroy together; shouldn't the "weak links" be paired with someone a little more combat-friendly?
Gilfroy Fezziwig |
Navior wrote:Rajah requested the last watch. Also, I'm not sure it's wise to put Corinna and Gilfroy together; shouldn't the "weak links" be paired with someone a little more combat-friendly?
So Malan and Melon on first watch. Perhaps Tevyn and Rajah second, and Gilfroy and Corinna third? Any objections?
Do you light a campfire?
"Weak links?" speak for yourself, sweetheart! Gilfroy is a buff gnome with a 5 Strength!
As opposed to all the wussy gnomes with a 5 Strength...