January 06, 2004 - 9:48 p.m.

I ought to be kicking back with a good book right now. There are a few lying around here, after all. Of course, if I start cataloging what I ought to be doing, the list could go on for a while. I ought to be taking the clean dishes out of the dishwasher. I ought to be starting some laundry. I ought to be taking the ornaments off the Christmas tree.

Not since the year Zack was born have we left the tree up this long. That year it was up nearly until February - but we had an excuse. New babies take a lot out of you. We planned to do it this past weekend, but with the playoff games and my insistence on renting Seabiscuit on dvd, we never found the time.

Seabiscuit is an incredible book. I highly recommend it. But, once again, the book ruins the movie. Saying the adaptation to the big screen took some liberties is an understatement. Wow. Some of them were just ridiculous. Although I enjoyed the film, it irritated me. And I was already in a bad mood to begin with.

I felt the cold coming on Thursday. My sinuses congested. My head ached. I couldn't stop sneezing. Friday morning I ached all over. I was prepared to tough it out and suffer the consequences over the weekend, but Mike, my sweetie, took time off work to let me sleep. So I was able to use that rest and a good dose of decongestants to pop out to the used books store in Centreville on Saturday. I brought in the stack of role playing books that hadn't sold online and got enough for them in trade to keep me happy a while. I didn't even spend it all at once. I think I'll enjoy browsing a few weeks.

Yes, I said farewell to all my White Wolf publications. I probably got such a good trade for them because they were barely used. The World of Darkness just didn't fit with the group I played in. Mage was probably the most successful game we ran - and it didn't last very long. Werewolf was a close second. Vampire never captured our interest. And no one wanted to even consider a Wraith game. I attempted an Arcanum campaign a few years ago, but my GM skills are weak and it didn't hold together. All my gaming experience had been in a totally different genre, too, so I didn't have much from which to draw. I'd spent far too much time with Marvel Superheroes (a really lousy system) and DC Superheroes (which we played purely for the reason that it sucked less than Marvel) until a guy named Chance (I'm not making this up) introduced our group to Champions - and me to Mike. World changing events ensued. Back home in Richmond, the group was playing Champions Fantasy - minimaxing galore but much more fun than AD&D. Puck-eater's Aliens games were also great but we invariably had to go through character creation at the beginning of each campaign since no one lived through the previous one. That eats into game time more than you might imagine. Then we dabbled in the Star Wars system for a few years, spent far too much money on Warhammer, and tried out the 3rd Edition of D&D. All that stuff (plus a couple others, minus DC Superheroes) is still on the shelf over here, most of it too used to consider selling. But I'm kind of hoping we'll have some use for them in the future... When there's time. And energy. And friends in town who enjoy this sort of thing.

Right now I'm just going to go read a book.

My New Year's Resolution for 2004: drink water daily. Why not?

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