Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
As I start this post, it’s 1:33 pm on October 7, 2021, so this post has been on hold for quite some time. It’s not quite the type of post I publish here, but screw it.
How do you keep a nerd in suspense? I just wrote a blog post that won't be published until January 14, 2022. 🙂 It's the anniversary of a local occurrence on that date several years ago, so you're unlikely to figure it out.
— Rob Bodine, #Attorney by Day, #Nerd by Day & Night (@GSLLC) October 7, 2021
There are still some stories trickling in regarding the recent death of comedian, Norm MacDonald, and the specific message of one story sent me down an internet rabbit hole. I asked myself, “During my lifetime, what was the most significant local celebrity death for the Washington, DC area?” My answer: Glen Brenner, sportscaster with WUSA (a CBS affiliate).
On this day 30 years ago, January 14, 1992, DC lost the most popular broadcaster in the area at the time. Glen died of a brain tumor at only 44 years old. He had run the Marine Corps Marathon just over two months prior, fell ill, and never really recovered.
This worked because he wasn’t cool at all.
It took about a week for local stations to stop covering the story, with networks interviewing broadcasters from rival networks. I remember his best friend (though I forget his name; Gordon, maybe, but not Gordon Peterson) then on the ABC affiliate, breaking down in tears as he said a public, posthumous goodbye. Steve Buckhantz of the relatively new Channel 5 (not yet a Fox affiliate) had the last one I saw in which he said (paraphrasing from memory), “This will probably be the last we discuss this on air, but it’s unlikely we’ll ever forget him.” I certainly never did. I remember some of his broadcasts. When he reported that the Boston Marathon demanded Rosie Ruiz return her medal for having cheated to win it, he said matter-of-factly (paraphrasing), “in a great showing of humility and sportsmanship, she said . . . no.”
I don’t think his humor would translate 100% into today’s world, but some of it was timeless, and even as a child in the late 70s, I got the jokes.
I don’t want to drag things down, nor do I like airing dirty laundry, so I’m going to give you a quick, unsupported description of me, then move on to the funny part.
I had an exceptionally rough childhood, and my emotional conditioning had me tolerating a lot of shit from people. Of course, even my mind could handle only so much, so eventually I’d snap (which was always disastrous), but for the most part, everything was bottled up until it exploded. As an adult, I still am very much that way but not nearly as bad. I’m more prone to snap at people than I was, but my preferred method remains to simply cut them out of my life.
Enough of that.
Now here’s the context for what happened recently. I bought a house. I shopped for homeowners’ insurance, which included my current auto insurance and renter’s insurance carrier (Farmers). I found a much better deal from another carrier (State Auto, A- rating) with the same coverage, so I decided to go with them. However, when I asked the agent for a quote on car insurance, he inexplicably went silent. I didn’t have time for any of this shit. I didn’t have time to haggle, and I wanted everything cleared up quickly. The time to give me an insurance quote had passed; I wasn’t going to go back and forth between them. So, I decided to go with State Auto for homeowner’s insurance and stay with Farmers for car insurance.
My Farmers agent wasn’t happy. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. After telling him how much of an ass he was being several times over, I stopped responding to his emails. He eventually changed his tone and acted as if he’d accepted reality, agreeing to provide only car insurance. However, he tried to manipulate me by insisting he needed information about my new homeowner’s policy to cancel my renter’s insurance. Why? Because he wanted to compare quotes. In other words, he hadn’t given up yet, and as I said, the time for quotes had passed. (Besides, his rates were almost twice the rates others were charging. Seriously. $1600/year v. $880/year for car insurance, with a lower consumer rating. What was I thinking?) His behavior was ridiculous on its face, and it gets worse. He charged me a renter’s insurance premium on the day after he knew I moved out. This could get him into a lot of trouble with the Maryland Insurance Administration. You can’t charge a premium for insurance that’s unnecessary or useless. The fact that he’s doing all of this to me, both an attorney and insurance agent, is risky. But hey, no need to ruin the idiot’s life. I just want him out of my hair.
In theory.
Now onto the funny.
He sent an exceptionally rude email that a vendor should never send to a client, which made me instantly decide to get car insurance from another carrier that night. Here’s the only important excerpt from the email:
You seem incredulous. The information in your e-mail below is ostensible.
He then shifted the goalposts so that he could pretend to back up those sentences. When I got home, I got a new car insurance policy with Progressive, cancelled my policy with him by going through Farmers corporate, and sent him this email.
Well, you’ll never have to remonstrate against my incredulous, ostensible, insolence again. I’ve abrogated the policies.
And that’s how I roll. I have no time for bullshit, and I also own a thesaurus. Do what you’re supposed to do or leave me alone.
Why Progressive? Because who doesn’t love Mittens?
I know you’re all sick of hearing about my new house, but hear me out. This is a D&D post. During my move, I found some things I had lost. Sort of. I have the original Word and PDF versions, but I found the bounded hard copies. First, some context.
Luddite Vic and I ran a gaming club called the Gamers’ Syndicate, and ran a convention about a decade ago called synDCon, playing off the association with the Syndicate. It took place in the DC area (Rockville, MD, to be precise); hence, the odd capitalization in the convention’s name.
I’m like a free agent: Unrestricted.
The current edition of D&D at the time was 4th, and one of the marketing efforts for that edition was the “dungeon delve.” These were 30-45 minute (if I recall correctly) collections of three or four combat-only scenarios. They were great at conventions for giving gamers something to do if their adventures ran over. In many cases, there were minor prizes for completing the delves, which wasn’t always easy.
Well, I took that idea and ran with it for synDCon II. It was my pet project because I was able to combine a couple of ideas to make it worth my trouble. I created delves based on iconic encounters in 1st Edition AD&D adventures, added in pregens created by Galen, and named the event synDClash (shut up). Here’s the rundown:
Return to the Borderlands (easy): The Mad Hermit, the Owlbear, and the Minotaur, all based on Keep on the Borderlands.
The Ruins at Inverness (medium): The chessmen, the medusa and “strange apes,” and the fire giant from my favorite D&D adventure, Ghost Tower of Inverness, which I’ve converted to 4e and 5e (only characters were published).
The Great Metal Dungeon (difficult): The mind flayer and vegepygmies, the combat-based robots, and the bulette from second favorite D&D adventure Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.
The Pit of the Queen (very difficult, by which I meant impossible): The demonweb maze populated by various giant arachnids, the two drow clerics sitting on towers, and Lolth herself from Queen of the Demonweb Pits.
We also allowed DMs to run the Fool’s Grove Delve, which was published by WotC. For synDClash (shut up), it was medium difficulty.
As you might guess, the Pit of the Queen was completely unfair. For those of you that have knowledge of 4e, here are three features that stand out for the final encounter with Lolth. First, the encounter begins with a lot of space between the PCs and Lolth, but with spider swarms near the PCs. The swarms have a close blast 3 basic attack(!). That is, if one PC provoked, the spider would execute a blast that could affect multiple PCs, and considering the cramped space and the range of the attack, there were always multiple targets. Oh, and of course that attack went off the moment the swarm was destroyed. Second, she had some animated statutes that kept PCs prone. Third, Lolth had a power that made her appear as “artillery.” However, the moment more than one PC at a time was adjacent to her, it became clear she was a “soldier.” No one saw that coming. They thought that once they got nearby, they’d have her, but that didn’t happen. There’s no way PCs could win this encounter if the DM played it as written, but that didn’t stop PCs from trying.
Josie, if you’re reading this, you’re credited on one of these as a playtester under the name, Jamie Morgan. I have no idea how that happened. 🙂
I was happy to see how popular synDClash (shut up) was. There were some people playing multiple delves for an entire slot, and not because there weren’t seats available at regular games. They enjoyed the nostalgia as well. If we had run a third synDCon, my next plan was to make a bunch of delves based on fairy tales, but it wasn’t meant to be.
I also found this gem from 1986.
One of these days, I’d like to run these again, and having hard copies for the adventures and the pre-generated characters makes that easy.
Friday, it was legally official. Today, it’s logistically official. The movers came and moved in all the big stuff. I’m 100% in my new house.
Again, absolutely no lawn to mow.
A few points:
Why didn’t anyone tell me I’d be spending so much time at Home Depot? I guess my Realtor did by implication. Among other things, he (Jeff Ganz, Century 21 Real Estate) gave me a $100 gift card to Home Depot, but that wasn’t blunt enough for a dolt like me.
I’ve lived a rather simple life; one without things like cabinets. For the past 8-1/2 years, do you know where my frying pan was stored? On the stove. When I wasn’t using it, I simply moved it to the back burner that I never used. Now I can put it away. Fortunately, my childhood memories told me that there’s often a drawer at the bottom of the oven for that sort of thing, so I have that covered, but you can imagine how little I have covered.
It doesn’t help that I have so much cabinet space that trying to store things is like perusing a Cheesecake Factory menu. If anyone would like to come over and organize everything, please do. I could use a nap anyway. Wake me up when you’re finished.
I’m happy to say that a handful of people have offered me free furniture, one of them more than the others. This will look less like a wasteland and more like a home soon enough.
Yes, I own a frying pan.
If you have a better word for it than “logistical,” start your own blog.
By now, you must have caught one of my many posts announcing the purchase of my first home. It seems appropriate, then, to post a video on (among other things), Frigg. She’s the goddess of the household (among other things) in my favorite pantheon, that of the Norse.
Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, it’s a video on 25 tips for home improvement. Having just bought my first house, I’m on a house-related run.
Some of this is obvious/lame, but as a new homeowner, there seem to be some good ideas in here. If you have a better video, please let me know.
By now, you know that I’ve bought a house. As an amateur student of mythology, what better to share than a video about the Egyptian cat-god(dess) of the home, Bas(tet).
I’ve started moving boxes in today, but the movers move the big stuff on Tuesday. That’s when I’ll actually start living there. But tonight, I’m going to do something there I haven’t done in about 7 years: Order food delivery. It just wasn’t convenient where I was. EDIT: That plan failed. Over an hour for delivery? I’ll pass.
Stone Ridge is rated A+ for livability. I’ll probably bring down their rating.
I’m scheduled to close on my first home this Friday. I’m really happy to finally own my own home, but I’m not as excited (or nervous) about it as the average buyer because I work in the industry. Ho-hum. Happens everyday. You might find it odd that, as an attorney that focuses almost entirely on real estate law nowadays, has never owned a home. I can explain it with one simple fact about me:
I’ve been a party to a month-to-month lease for the last 8-1/2 years.
You see, I love to game the system when it comes to my commute. My best commute was from 1997-1998, when I was in law school. I lived in Presidential Towers, and my commute consisted of walking to the other side of the intersection of Madison and Clinton to the Citibank Building (now known as Accenture Tower apparently). When I moved to McLean in 2013, it was because I was working in Tysons Corner, which was about 1-1/2 miles from where I lived. When I took a job in Rockville, MD two years later, McLean represented the closest place to live that was still in Virginia. I wasn’t going back to Maryland.
Because I don’t change things up frequently, I stayed in both of those jobs far longer than I should have, which in turn meant I stayed where I was in McLean. However, intellectually-speaking, I knew I was at each of these places too long, so I wanted to stay flexible so that I could relocate on a dime. I’ve been working for my current employer since April 1, 2020, and am only now comfortable doubling down and buying a house based on where I’m working. Of course, buying a house is harder than finding an apartment, so I’m not right down the street, but my commute has been cut down to about 1/3 of what it is currently. That’s pretty good considering I was facing a seller’s market. (Stone Ridge is rated A+ for livability.)
But the point is this: It’s in my nature to always keep my options open but never actually exercise them.
This time next month, we’ll be close to wrapping up Winter Fantasy, a table-top gaming convention hosted by Baldman Games. This is the one and only gaming convention I attend all year, and it’s the only one I want to attend. Every February, we rent a large van, pile in, and drive out to Ft. Wayne, IN to enjoy arctic weather. On the way, however, we have time to play three adventures, which gets our new characters ready for higher-level play. We’ll also run a game on the way home. We call the trip Winter Vantasy. I’m running a module by on of my favorite three D&D Adventureres League writers, Will Doyle.
I’m an adult.
During the 4th Edition D&D days, I glued magnets to the bottom of my minis and used my magnetic battle map to run games. It made playing in the van a lot easier.
Having largely wandered away from gaming, I don’t currently plan to actually game at Winter Fantasy. I’ve bought a convention-long badge but no event tickets. Gaming has never been my focus there. This is the one time a year that I drink heavily, so much so that I probably match my alcohol intake for the entire year (or close to it). My bar tab costs as much as my room (not really), and I once drank O’Reilly’s out of their scotch (really). I get to see a lot of people that I otherwise wouldn’t. That’s why I’m there, and a small convention facilitates that experience.
Last year was online only, and I had some good Zoom calls, but attendance is limited. There’s nothing like heading out to the bar and actually seeing people. This is the first year back since COVID hit, so I hope to see as many of them as possible. I know that won’t be all of them.
Winter Fantasy is best described as “cozy.” Give it a shot.
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to, nor endorsed, the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
Play What You Want 