Atropa Belladonna~ Raven (a.k.a. Nightshade)'s Weblog ~
These are the ARCHIVES of AUGUST 2006. For more archives, visit the Archives page. For the current Weblog entries, check the Main page.
Atropa Belladonna| Tues, August 22, 2006 (10:50pm) Some of the promised pics from Gencon:     
I've been hanging out on the forums, and watching too much Weiss Kruiz, to do much other posting. Maybe more Gen-Con stuff later. Maybe not. After all, I have other posts to make, like the one about my Mom arranging a meeting with drug dealers in the mall parking lot. (Ooooh - thunderstorm overhead. Lots of pretty lightening and thunder. I got to take my daughter out onto the balcony to watch the light show, before the rain really started pouring down. That was fun!) |
| Tues, August 15, 2006 (10:20am) Gen Con was, as always, a blast. Shades and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and Myke (who came along with us) says she did too. I'm inclined to believe her, since she's already making plans to come with us again next year (grin). We ate pretty well, due in part to the free breakfasts provided by the Embassy Suites Hotel, and I made sure to get more sleep than last year, so I didn't get terribly sick by the end of the Con. It was good. Of course, we brought back a lot of stuff. Shades has a huge stack of new games he wants to play - probably on Friday Gamer Nights - and I have new dungeon models for our 7th Sea game on Mondays. I also have a pile of anime to watch, and bought another copy of The Gamers DVD. Anyone who hasn't yet seen The Gamers is welcome to watch it at our place... it's a humorous look at an adventure run by a group of gamers in college. I won't be lending it out this time, however, as that's how I lost my previous two copies. By the way - if you're one of the people who borrowed the disc from me previously, you can keep the copy now. Or, better yet, lend it to a friend who will forget to return it because it's too funny, and then you can go buy your own legitimate copy! I hope to post a few Gen-Con pictures in the next few days, if I can pull myself away from my new games and DVDs. |
| Tues, August 8, 2006 (10:50pm) We're off to Gen Con! Seeya in a week. |
| Sun, August 6, 2006 (7:50pm) And then there's other people... Today was insanely busy at work. It gets that way when the clinic will be closing early because of a doctor shortage on the long weekend - everyone needs to come in (apparently all at once) to get ther dressing changed or sutures removed. Add to that 3 minor surgeries all in a row, and it was 2:30 before I had a chance to go for lunch. Just as I was heating my dinner in the microwave, a lady came in to get a routine injection. Normally we fast-track injections because they only need a nurse and don't have to wait for the doctor. So, normally, these patients are accustomed to being served quickly and often get impatient if they aren't. However, when I explained to her we'd just had a very busy couple of hours, and I needed to have a 5 minute break before giving her an injection, she quickly agreed to sit & wait for me to finish my break. In fact, she said she'd wait for me to finish my full lunch - not just a quick coffee. When I finished eating, I gave her injection, and she politely thanked me for my time. People like that are a pleasure to serve, and I was not just rattling off a line when I wished her an enjoyable long weekend. |
| Sat, August 5, 2006 (11:55pm) Of all the...! Some people are rude. I don't mean the in-your-face, saying crass things, or deliberately pissing people off kind of rudeness either. I mean the absolutely-no-concern-for-others which permeates some people's lives. We had a lady at the clinic today, who was exactly that sort of rude. She came in talking loudly to a friend and bitching at her kids in the sort of voice which carries across the entire building, and proceeded to annoy the half dozen people waiting in the clinic with her inane conversation. Her kids proceeded to tear up and down the halls while she screamed at them (but made few actual moves to chase them down) and she parked her behemoth baby stroller right in the hall way where people couldn't get around it without serious effort. She appeared to be completely oblivious to the looks people gave her, and was actually offended when we suggested a more convenient location for her stroller. When time came for her to see the doctor, she dragged her kids (now screaming and crying) into the examination room with her - which was preferable to leaving them loose in the clinic, believe me - where they began to rip paper, bang cupboard doors, and scream even louder. After the doctor finished seeing her (a check-up which was punctuated by exasperated screams at her children) she began dragging the whole family down the hall again, pushing the stroller ahead of her like a battering ram and not watching where she was going, or caring when it bashed the wall, jarring the (crying) baby therein. The doctor (who is by-the-by a very kind and caring person) muttered to me in passing " can't we put them all in cages?" After rolling my eyes and nodding in response, I stopped, and tried to think as charitably as I could about her and her situation (it was tough, let me tell you.) But I figured that she was probably having a really rough day, and that being a (single?) parent of 3 screaming kids could not be easy when you are feeling sick yourself. So I thought perhaps... just perhaps... what she needs is a little respect, and some help. I followed her to the front of the clinic, and as she was trying to maneoveur the door open (using her stroller to push it with), I offered to help. "You seem to really have your hands full. May I hold the door for you?" I asked as politely as possible. I didn't expect her to be polite in return, so I wasn't surprised when she replied with an irritated "Yah." What did surprise me was what she did next. While I held the door open, she shoved her stroller into the foyer and left it there so she could (without a 'pardon me' or 'one moment' or even a backward glance') go into the waiting room to talk to her friend. She had trapped me against the wall of a very small foyer area with her behemoth stroller (and screaming baby), and walked away. My choices were: (a) let go of the door so it could smash the stroller and wedge it there, (b) push the stroller out the door and into parking lot where it could sit unattended, or (c) awkwardly shove the stroller back through the door into the clinic, where it would bash into the rude lady who had her back turned to me. But I prevailed against temptation, and waited patiently for the lady to finish what was no doubt an important conversation with her friend, and the scream at her kids to hurry up cuz she was waiting, and continue to shove her stroller rudely ahead of her like a battering ram and exit the building. And she did not so much as glance at me. No "Sorry about that" or "Thank you" or even a curt nod of the head to aknowledge my existance as something more than a rubber doorstop. She just kept up her constant stream of invictive berating her kids on their behaviour and barged across the parkinglot where she began shouting at the driver in some unintelligible gutterspeak. Obviously my caring and concern for her made her feel like a much more valuable human being. |
| Thurs, August 3, 2006 (12:30am) Things I've done today that I've never done before. A list, by me (Today meaning Wednesday, although it is technically Thurs already.) - Played LaserTag with a group of friends. - Made Beef Burgandy. (And it was tasty, too!) - Took 3 children age five and under into FabricLand with the intent of buying a corset pattern. This is not something I intend to repeat. - Sat in the new City Center pedway and watched traffic drive by for 10 minutes. (I used to sit on the floor in the old pedway and watch vehicles drive underneath while waiting for friends to finish shopping, or to kill time waiting for a bus to come. The floor was hard and often (duh) dirty. But this new pedway is clean and has a built-in coffee shop and nice leather chairs and everything!) - Agreed to sew a DoodleBop costume for my daughter. What was I thinking? Anyway, it was a very good day. Only 6 more left to go before GenCon! |
| Wed, August 2, 2006 (9:30am) Next week at this time, Shades and I (and Myke, too!) will be in Indianapolis, headed to our child-free hotel room, and getting ready to enjoy the Best Four Days in Gaming. Gen Con doesn't officiall start til the 10th (Thursday) but Shades will have plenty of work to do setting up with the forge and I'll be helping out at True Dungeon, and then going on a VIP run through the dungeon. Yay! For the next week, I'm gonna be packing, and gathering my gear for the little game of thieving stickers which I've managed to hook several people on, and maybe (just maybe) try to sew a corset with my shiny new black&silver skull and crossbones brocade. Oh - and laser tag! Perhaps I will celebrate next week's upcoming geekiness by playing lasertag tonight! |