Blue

Oh good! I thought I'd missed the 5:15 lab to downtown.

Wesley Crusher. Yeh, the kid who played him turned out okay IRL, but that character... Joffrey Baratheon. Series; I haven't read the books. Von Kaiser. Sure it's a video game character but his face is literally made to be punched. Short Round. Not proud of wanting to punch a kid, but tell me he doesn't have it coming.

I'm a huge Chris Cornell fan. That dude had such range. For me it is between him and Freddie Mercury and I'm sure Chris would be honored to be mentioned in the same conversation.

About to start a superhero RPG as a player and one of the other guys in the group used to play CoH with me, so we were getting nostalgic via email. I finally broke down and did the download and signed up, thinking "I'll just go in, play with the costume designer, make a hero for my upcoming game, and that's it." And 3 hours and many levels later I logged off. I forgot what an incredible time sink this game is. I will have to use it sparingly.

I'm in a second gaming session now! With this setup we can do back-to-back gaming days. I discovered that I can't use one of the spiffy Zoom "virtual backgrounds" without having a green screen, because of the video chip in my computer being subpar. However, I put on a green shirt, turned on the virtual background and I"m projecting graphics on my chest as result, like when a weather caster wears a green outfit.

Slapshot (Paul Newman player coach of a rundown hockey team) Miracle (Kurt Russell, the 1980 Miracle on Ice American hockey team) Eight Men Out (John Cusack, the 1919 "Blacksox" scandal) White Men Can't Jump (Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes, neighborhood basketball hustling) The Longest Yard - Original version (Burt Reynolds is a pro QB who is stupid enough to get thrown in Jail and has to captain the inmates vs the guards) Undisputed (Ving Rhames, Wesley Snipes. Champion of the world is sent to prison where he meets the undefeated prison system pro) Is poker a Sport? It's on ESPN... Rounders (Matt Damon is a careful, excellent poker player and Ed Norton is a wild lunatic; John Malkovich has the best/worst Russian accent)

Okay, that went pretty well. You have to know first that at least one of our gaming group is resistant to virtual gaming, which is what made it interesting when we went online a few days ago to test ZOOM as a viable gaming platform and he wound up sending us an email the next day asking if we want to game online. We tried a number of platforms but found a lot of them were too complex. We just wanted to see and hear each other, and potentially to see a map or whiteboard. So I bought one license to Zoom, set up the meeting, everyone else joined, and we did 4.5 hours today. The game was not Champions. It's actually the game GODBOUND, which this GM loves, and which we've found to be kind of fun. The characters are easy enough to make that we did it quickly and he dispensed with some of the often painful "building up into something" that he does to us in most games. I think I probably had the most audio/video problems as I experienced a freeze of a few seconds every 40 minutes or so. Another player opened a copy of MapTool off of RPTools.net and we shared that virtually. This is a longstanding group (so we're not taking applicants), but this time we gamed from San Diego, L.A. County, Orange County (x4), and Utah. 6 Players and 1 GM. I guess I'm saying, keep on gaming. Don't let the cooties keep you down.

I picked a bad time to have a tooth act up. I've lived through this kind of pain before I think I'll manage it again.

Well, let's see... Family check... Mom and Step-dad are in the high risk group but both are retired. Except for step-dad's obsessive need to grocery shop (even when there's no apocalypse) he won't contact nearly anyone. Cousin and his girlfriend... My cousin is still working at his golf course, not sure why that's open, guess it's not a contact enough sport. His girlfriend had her restaurant fold. Not close down temporarily, just close for good because of this, so she' unemployed. My brother worked for the same catering company since high school. So.. 40 years? Well, they went under. The apocalypse will not be catered. His wife is on the east coast with her dad who is high risk. I work for a federal agency that has been mentioned prominently in the president's recent speeches. I still go to work. I'm one of the few in the office who has things they have to do in person, while everyone else telecommutes. I run into maybe two human beings (other employees) during the commute/work/return commute day. So it's the collateral damage, not the virus that's affecting my clan. Went from 2 retired, five working, to 2 retired, two unemployed, 1 temporarily unemployed, 2 working. I could use the time off but can't do it.

Brownies. It's hard to ruin Brownies and they don't melt. Ice Cream is awesome, but you're on the clock and some awful stuff can go in there. The dystopian nightmare of 2019 that is Bladerunner vs. dystopian nightmare of November 2019 that is The Running Man vs. the dystopian nightmare that is reality.

Haven't read the books/played the games, so I had no real exposure. I like Cavil in this. He's appropriately monosyllabic and intimidating. If you're that creepy and imposing you should not have to say much to get your point across. Early episodes felt a little too standard swords-and-sorcery but, as I hoped, they were just building a foundation. Reading to see if this is a spoiler... no, doesn't feel like it... Last episode needed more Witcher in it, but had some fun fantasy combat tactics. I'd watch another season.

Making the beast with two necks.

Brand new TOOL... First track released... 10 minutes! I liked it at first, but now that I've listened to it 8 times I'm all-in.

Matt Sorum, Frankie Perez, Steve Stevens, and the immortal Geezer Butler... Deadland Ritual

I'm not much of a country guy but that was pretty solid. Especially the guitar solo.