The last week or so has just been crazy busy. I've barly had time or thoughts to post so I'll do a little catch up.

So the wedding plans continue to progress. We've hit our first big sag so far. BZ's father has refused to dress up as darth vader, which has really upset her. I could just see it in her face that she was almost rethinking the whole theme idea. It just makes me sad. I just can't imagine not making such a small sacrifice for my kids when I have them. Lets say for instance my son is gay or something and decides he wants to have a drag queen wedding. Now I sure as hell don't want to throw on some heels and a dress, but its my kid. I'm going to love him and respect his oddities. I can suck it up for a few hours and leave my comfort zone, if its going to make a big diference on an important day like that for him.
I just hope her father comes around.

We're still looking for a venue, but we may have a caterer. Costumes are comming slow, but I have some good leads for cheaper stormtrooper outfits. Getting high quality props (lightsabers, blasters, ect) is also a pain. Its a good thing I'm well practiced in all that.
What is nice is the reaction we have gotten on the idea so far. Just about everyone we've pitched it to is very excited about it. Heck we've even had some people we don't know, ask us to invite them and have offered to dress up as some of the more difficult star wars characters, which is cool.

The weekend went well over all. Friday was game night. My tarot card anagrams went over well. After they figured out the cards were the secret to the riddles they were able to solve each one in a few minuites, which is much less time than it took to make them. It seemed like a fun time for all. There were a few serious death threats as always, but no player deaths. I think I've found a decent middle point of threat level for this party, which has been difficult up to this point. The only problem I'm beginning to have is my high level baddies keep teleporting away before the end of the fight so they survive. I'm getting too many reoccuring villians so I'll have to do something about that soon.

Saturday we came in to school for a while. My experiment from friday apparently got contaminated and had colonies all over the plate. So today I'm running experiments to see if I have gotten rid of the contamination or not.

After the visit to school, me and BZ went to our friend Bill's BBQ-Picnic dealie. It was a lot of fun. I ended up drinking a lot more than I normally do, but didn't really get drunk. Besides the food, which was fantastic, probably the best part were the people. Its not often I get to hang out in an environment of nerds, geeks, ect. There were conversations about star wars, online video games, superhero films, D&D, and more. It was my "base" and I felt very at home there.

Sunday was finally a day of rest. We did some shopping, which was kind of sad. When you need to buy new clothes because everything you have is tight its never good. At least Kohls had some good deals so I walked away with about 5 new outfits for 85$. The rest of the day was spend catching up on stargate and stargate atlantis shows we've missed.

There is probably more to report and things I've forgotten, but for now, its time for lunch.

Seems like time has just been flying by and I haven't a spare minuite to stop and post something. Wedding plans are pushing forward. I'm still not sure exactly how we're goin g to pay for this all, but c'est la vie. I'm slowly trying to collect some star wars parts to create the costumes we will need to make this venture a sucess. As they say anything worth doing is worth doing right.

Not too much other news, seems like everything right now is focused on wedding stuff, refiancing to pay for wedding stuff, a bit on the book I'm writing (no spoilers are to be given), and a tiny smidge on all the other stress of my normal life.

I was going to write a bit on hell's kitchen and how utterly predictable the show is, but I don't see half the point to it. Reality TV is crap, and always has been. Now we just seem to have people writing and directing eppisodes so its like any other crap TV only with worse actors.
Oh and for any of you wondering about the predictability of the show, whichever character whom says that they won't be beaten down, thrownoff the show, will win, ect will definatly be thrown off that eppisode. Its held true for the last 5 eppisodes. 5 minutes into the show I'm going its that guy this week. And so far I've been right every time. Maybe I should look into betting on the eppisodes.

Thats about it. No time for TV or films.
I've been reading " The Jesus papers" which provides a lot of interesting info about who the real Jesus actualy was and how the church has altered his image to suit their needs. I sugest it to anyone looking to get out of organized religion or anyone looking for another reason to dislike the catholic church.

So this week is still blasting off with wild news.
Deb's friend Eric has decded to take a short vacation form his normal life and move in with us for a week. So far the only real change is I need to wear clothes while hanging around the house.

So the wedding progresses. What I thought was going to be a nice and long engagement turns out we're going to tie the knot some time next year, most likely in the month of October. So set aside some time because just about everyone who reads this is invited. I say just about because there may be some peeps I don't know partaking my written thoughts.

So let me allow you to whitness what I'm calling "the big lie". If you're already married you probably already know this, but for those of you who aren't...
This is what your girlfriend tells you "Oh we don't have to get married just now, I just want the ring."
Now don't fall for this! MAybe she's lying, maybe she is just honestly naieve, but as soon as she gets that ring, she's going to call her mother, her sister, her best girl friends. And all of them are going to start in "When's the date, When's the date, When's the date!" and "You don't want to be engaged too long! More than a year is trouble! You need to set a date now!!!!"

And the next thing you'll be hearing is "Oh, how is next fall for you, or maybe next spring" No care to the fact that your multiple K$$ in the hole for an astetic pile of carbon and gold. Noo, now is the time to start really going in debt. Average wedding cost around New London area in Ct, 26,000$$$$ Thats more than I put down on my house. More than I paid for my car. Making this the biggest purchase I've pretty much ever made, for one day of entertainment. And I'm still making just enough to make ends meet.
bah

Ah yes, Casting Remove curse on the ring does not seem to make it removable form the finger. Some thing more powerful such as Wish or Miracle would probably be needed.
It does how ever reveal the curse engrained in the ring, probably at its forging.
The Curse of Marrying a gamer:
You are now bethroved to a man who shall never grow up.
He will continue to purchase toys, comic books, and games well beyond the time your children have grown up and stoped buying such things.
He will a number of times a year dress up in rediculas costumes and parade around with other geeks in places you normally wouldn't be caught dead in. He may atempt to force the same sort of attire on you and at the very least will make you admit you came with him.
He will find the need to explain to you, probably in great detail, why halflings are better than elves no matter what some movies may say and why his latest villian or hero is so much better than all of the ones he has played in the past.
You will find yourself forced to watch every new movie that comes out, pretaining to superheros, giant monsters, zombies, elves, wizards, ect. You will be subjected to long discussions after said films about how the movie got: superhero X, genetics, undead, elves, or magic wrong.
You may also find yourself subjected to some of the following:
Discussions on the physics of dice rolling.
Questions like "Would you rather have a bionic eye, or glasses that do the same thing, the glasses are cheaper but the eye is cooler?"
Viewing very very tiny painted figures and commenting on how good they look.
Collectable card games.
and more.


To answer the other question, If this were some strange alternate reality, possibly induced by massive amounts of alcohol or crack, the proposal would have gone much the same, only hapen after everyone had left.
BZ: Oh, you got me flowers.
Me: thats not all I got.
BZ: *looks in box* (insert crying screaming, ect)
Me: I had something much better all planned out, but you slept through it.
BZ: drat.
Me: yup, but if anyone asks, thats what happened.
BZ: well if anyone asks, I was dressed better and don't drool when I sleep.
Me: Deal.

I think thats how it would go in an alternate universe verbatim, but then I might be overly excited in the alternate universe and not get all the details right.

So saturday, I woke up much too early and skiped on down to Milford for some mini moto action. We got to ride for a little over an hour before my bike started to over heat. We wanted to grab some lunch before the afternoon's activities so we packed up and headed off.

At about 4pm, we arrived in New Haven for their annual clue fest. Clue fest for those of you who don't know is a scavenger hunt, where the clues are all points of interest in New Haven. Me and Ian were going to be a team, but as enithor of us know a ton about New Haven it wasn't looking good. But we were going strong, proudly promoting the Riding Nerdy team name. As it went we ended up getting taged up with another team, who unfortuatly had already registered with the name "the sharks" as some sort of west side story reference. I didn't really get it as none of them were prominantly hispanic and we didn't do any singing or dance routines. Eithor way it all worked out pretty well as one of the members of the sharks knew a lot about new haven and with my ability to solve puzzles and my and Ian's ability to run all over the city, we actually were doing pretty well. We got a bit of a slow start due to a lack of direction and proper planning in the first part of the hunt, which was comprised of a lot of counting tiles or windows or arches on prominant new have buildings. This got us a slow start to the second half of the hunt which was made up of the riddle like questions. Then on out first question our driver decided to take us to the wrong part of the city, so we lost more time doing that.

So the day wound down with it hitting 8:30 Pm and we still had 4 more locations to get to. The game was called and the secret party location revealed. So for the next few hours we kicked it down in the Peabody museum in the hall of dinosaurs. The food was good. The beer was good. And the location was totally Key.

I got home about 12:30.

Sunday was a bit more lapsadasical. I came in to school for a bit and me and BZ had lunch at Dairy Queen (tasty). We're starting to make the plans and arrangements for the ceremony. It appears that everything for a wedding cost about 4 times what it normally would. The whole thing is just rediculas.

My coffee pal isn't here yet so the story continues.
Friday comes and I am convinced to go through with it even without the special packaging. I get some good advice from some friends.

On the way home, I stop in to get some flowers, both roses and a bouquet of other flowers Deb likes. I arrive home just before her and hide the flowers. Its game night so she usually takes a nap before hand, which would give me plenty of time to get everything ready. Here is a transcript.
Deb: Oh I got home too late, now I don't have time for a nap.
ME: Oh you've got at least 90 minutes, thats plenty of time.
Deb: thats not enough time.
Me: Sure it is, you don't want to fall asleep durring the game.
Deb: I'm going to start making cookies and bagle dip.
Me: *quietly*damn frick dig ding dong

Now while she is in the kitchen cooking stuff up, I'm in the dining room, hoping she dosen;t decide to take the five steps to see what I'm up to. I empty out my dice box, an engraved wooden box, I cut the heads off two roses and place them in the box. I go into the kitchen to check on Deb, she is still cooking. I come back into the dinning room. I remove the ring from its place in by book bag. I open the box it is in and place it in the dice box and close the box. I check on Deb, still cooking. I return to the dining room and write out on an index card, "I love you Deb Fix, Will you Marry me?" I place the card in the box. It won't stay in place. I close the box and check on Deb. She is almost done cooking and is now starting to wonder around. I slip over to the roll top desk and get the tape. Then in between her walking by, I tape the card in place. Everything is set to go...Except the game!!

With less than an hour left I sketch out the dungeon and whip up some monsters. People begin to arrive. There is some food, some fun, and a good night of ass kicking. One of our players was having some family troubles so he had to go early, but came back a bit later, poor guy.
So as the night is winding down and the party finishes off the last monster they will fight I read off the treasure list, which includes a small locked box. They have no rogue so Deb's character is the only one who can open the box. She does, to much shock. I break out the flowers and there is much cheering, crying, and the like. She did say yes, BTW.

So thats how it all went down.
Oh and for those of you who don't remember any of this, you were probably too drunk at the time and blacked it out.
Also for any of you who remember Deb falling asleep on the couch and being semi comatose through the entire end of the game, you were probably on crack, cause whats written above is exactly how it went down :)

Monday July 17th, I know it muist seem odd that I'm posting first thing in the morning but there is news to share. This past weekend, specifically this past friday, I diverged from the lifestyles of a swinging bacholar and have entered into the premarital aggrement affectivly known as engaged.
So whats the whole story, you're probably asking, well here goes.
The date was July 7th and I had gotten in at a normal sort of time. In my email in box I found a letter from the FayCullen compagny teling me the ring I thought would take 12-20 weeks to procure was in fact on its way. I effectivly freaked out. In my mind there was weeks of planning still to be had, when in actuality monday would be the date whence I would be aquiring the means with which to propose.
Monday came and I called in sick so that I would be around to sign for the delivery. Deb being one never to pas up a day off decided it would be best if she stayed home as well, just to make getting the ring in secret al the more challenging. The hours of the day ticked by and I was freightened that Deb would decide that now, as the guy was walking up to the house would be the best time to stop taking a nap and come down stairs. As it turned out, that momrnt never came. The tracking of the package didn't change all day and at the end of the day it still said delivery on time for monday. Stupid UPS.
Tuesday, the package began to move. I had already burned off my one day of off time for the week so at work I was. The package required a signature so I knew it wouldn't just be elft at the house, but a note on the door would have given the entire jig up. Deb sends my an email saying she dosen't have much to do and should be home early. I finished up my experiments and was out and moving by two. I arrived home just after three in plenty of time to snag the note off of the door. I make a quick call to UPS, the package will be back there for pick-up after 7pm. I take off. The plan was to "dick" around town for a while until Deb got home so that it wouldn't seem like I had been there to alter anything. I came back at 4:30 and she still wasn't there, so much for a short day. I decided to blow some time playing FF10. She arrives home ~10 minutes later. At ~6:40 I mention I want to go down to Sarge's Comics, one place she never wants to go to. I'm out again. I get to UPS just at 7 and get the ring, then go up to best buy and pick up some anime, which I could say I bought at Sarges. I arrive home and she is none the wiser.
Wensday, Thursday, and Friday are spend making plans and remaking plans. The orgional plan was to create a special box for the ring made out of a treasure chest from mage knight. The chest turns out to be too small to contain the ring. I freak out again and almost cal off the whole plan.

More to come.

Thursday already. This week seems to be flying by in an eventfully uneventful sort of manner.
I'll probably have more to say about it all next week, its one of those things that needs some analysis after the fact.
Right now things seem fairly normal. Lab stuff isn't working right. Watching too much TV and film at home. And that dog is still crazy.

Took a trip down to sarge's the other night and got some good ideas for the game this week. You just have to look in the window to see what I mean. Its going to be insane.

Well its the monday...*yawn*, no tuesday after the big bash. Monday was spent in recovery. The party actually went realy well. We had a decent crowd show up. Played some nifty lawn games. Ate way too much. Then skiped on down to sailfest just in time to catch the fireworks display, which was even better than last year, thought there were some complaints at a lack of smilie face fire works, which they usually have.

The mead was decent, but I'm going to have to remember not to add cane sugar to it for the carbonation step. It really added an ethanol flavor to the liquor, which was quite dissappointing. The stuff not made carbonated didn't have that flavor.

There should be a lot more to say and mucho detailiso but right now my head feels like its full of scrambled eggs so it will have to wait.

Well tomorow is the big party day and slightly upsetting it seems that just about all of the people I invited aren't going to come. So it should be a fun day of chatting it up with BZ's work friends yippee.
We went out last night and bought food, drinks, and some yard games for it. Over all it should be a good time. It just would have been nice to see everyone.

So aparently my time table is being rapidly pushed up. What I thought was going to take months in actuality took only a few days, though I really shouldn't be suprised. Just goes to show you what idiots some people are. If only my project would work this way.

Not much else to say, but I should have a good report on the party for monday.

Oh, I have slowly started writing a new "book" in quotes as I've only gotten about a third of the first chapter done and I haven't actually finished any of the other books I was writing yet. At least its something and it feels good to be writing, even if its someone else's idea.

Day two back from a short break and its still difficult to get fully back into the swing of things. I've got cultures a growing, but no secondary project to keep me busy until around 1ish when they reach saturation and the next step can be taken.

Secrets are funny things. Mention you have one and all of a sudden you have everyone's interest.

Not too much to report on last night. I got some comics, some star wars minis, and continued getting ready for this weekend's cook out. I must say it is really nice having the house be this clean.

p.s. my latest story is up at ww.anotherealm.com in the contest section under garage sale.
Its titled "the market".
Its not the sort of dark things I usually write, but I guess some sort of reflection of the brighter gentler side I've ben showing as of late.

I only wish I could read it and the other stories posted. This computer is still just showing me blue lines when I try to open any of the stories or comments.
Ugh

July 5th, comming back form a long weekend.
You just know the world has some how gone to hell in your absence when this is the first thing you come accross.
E-mail porno spam, but not just any old porno spam, no.
This add wasn't featuring wet asians, hot latinos, pissing lesbians, ways to turn a limp worm into an electric ell, ect.
This add was for hardcore pokemon.
Now most email spam draws little attention form me, but somehow this just had to be seen.
Unfortunatly it all turned out to be a lie. No DP action for pikachu, no deep throating charazard, no golden showers for bulbasaur.
Its really probably for the best.

The vacation weekend was nice but tiring. I've almost beat final fantasy X, though it seems like every time I think I'm getting close there is always one more baddie to go. One thing about them that is kind of sad is they are usually one trick ponies. Meaning they just have one really attack strategy and if you guard your self from it well enough you can drop them without much issue.

Besides video games, BZ's fam came down/in from minesota. Monday we went out to the island to do some wine tasting. It wasn't as fun as it usually is, maybe the group, maybe the fact I really don't have any money to buy wine with. We came home with only one bottle which is unusual for us. Its a peach wine which was really cool and had a good flavor.

Tuesday we fixed the lawn mower, fun fun fun. Then had a cok out in between the rain showers and watched fireworks on tv. It was the macy's 4th of july celebration in NY. I must say they had a really odd sort of music selection to go with the pyrotechnic display, which really didn't go well with it at all. The whole thing was kind of depressing.

Also before I forget, I think I'm going to go out of my mind. I'm good at keeping secrets, but it always seems to be things people want to talk about and it seems the longer I keep the secret the more trouble it will end up being. And of cource me mentioning it here will just be more trouble. C'est la vie.

I had one wild dream tuesday morning, but I'll spare you the detail. In short I was directing a friend of mine (no one who reads this, that I know) in an adult film. It was a really wild one as well with masks and toys and all sorts of kink. Wish I could remember it better.

So today I'm back at work and once again trying to salvage this project. More PCR to see if my mutants are mutants or if I have one more notch to erase from the list of things done.

Monday Monday!

God, it's nice to get back to work so I can relax! My house is sqeaky clean! I'm so tired, though, I can barely stand up. We had a fantastic visit with Purge's family on Saturday and Sunday. I felt so bad, they got caught in some terrible traffic, but they finally made it and it was so great to see everyone. I really wished they could have stayed longer, but we had to work today. And I know they were eager to get home so they wouldn't be stuck in another traffic jam. It took them 4 hours from Long Island and 6 hours from Jersey to get to us. They made it home in 2 hours and 3 hours, respectively yesterday, which is a little quicker than normal travel time.

Last night, my parents took me, Purge, Nightskye and my cousin Burp on the boat over to Madison to watch the fireworks. It was very pretty, but I nearly fell asleep on the way back. I wanted to stay up and read, but my head hit the pillow and I was out like a light. I feel really bad for Purge because he had to be in at 7:00 a.m. this morning. I was able to sleep until 8:00 a.m.

I'm pretty sure my boss is going to let us go early today. So I'm making sure my desk is cleaned off so I don't get hammered on Wednesday with stuff. The phones are really slow. We had a Hello Kitty moment that you can read about at my Live Journal I'm going to go home and read my book for the rest of the day with a soda and a couple of cats. Then I'm going to watch my Inu Yashi DVDS and knit. Tomorrow, I'm going to sleep as late as I want. We bought new sheets. They're 600 thread count so they're just this shy of sateen -- which I hate. To tell you the truth, I like my 400 count Eyptian cotton better, but these are still pretty nice. I'd love to get my hands on the sheets at the Sheriden by the Airport. Those sheets are amazing. Everytime, we fly out for an early flight, we try to stay there the night before. It's always a good sleep.

So the summer is finally upon us. I'm hoping to spend a lot of time in Jacknife's pool. I want to drop some pounds and I love to swim. Of course, this means I should probably not have "Funny Bones" for breakfast either, but I was in a fog this morning and they were the first things I grabbed.