9/25/07
What a fortunate turn of events. Not only is this area of the Gnomish Mines well lit but the stairs going down are right fucking next door to the stairs going up!!! Needful objects acquired in the mines are a skeleton key and a mummy wrapping. Did I mention that aluminum wand was a wand of make invisible? Well it is. Finally a cloak of protection has become part of Spivak's inventory. A dwarf was angered when I zapped him but Spot quickly dispatched the fellow.

It turns out that Spivak is dangerously close to being easily encumbered which makes me want to find an elven mithril coat or a dwarvish mithril coat. Sadly mithril hinders spellcasting but it's much lighter than regular metal armor. Both are 100 points lighter than Spivak's current scale mail.

Fortunately Spot appears to be tough enough to take on and kill dwarves but Spivak needs to cast heal spells on Spot to avoid losing a mightily helpful pet. She's now a large cat.

With a key in Spivak's inventory along with the wand of digging Spivak went ahead and raided the vault on dungeon level one in addition to looting various locked chests. I could've had Spivak kick open the locks but if there's anything fragile in there, i.e. crystal or glass wands or potions, then there's a huge chance it'd break and be lost.

I think I fixed my front door. It's a heavy door and the top hinge always gets out of whack, scraping the rug on the top landing. On Sunday night I shoved a bunch of wooden matchsticks into the screw holes and put the screws back in. Hopefully this will last longer than usual. The stairs were vacuumed as well and I am pleased.

The house is no longer white. Over the weekend it was painted the same yellow brown as next door and all the windows and doors are painted dark red. Looks pretty nice.

When I lived in New Jersey I was really, really provincial. The one time where I left the state on an excursion, going to Virginia for sex, I sat in my beat-up station wagon at a gas station waiting for an attendant to come along and pump my gas. Eventually I figured out it was self serve but was extraordinarily cautious about pumping my own gas out of fear someone would jump out and go "LOL FULL SERVE GB2/CAR/". For those of you playing along at home all gas stations in New Jersey are full serve and it is illegal to pump your own gas. Why? I dunno lol. Upon departing the Garden State for the front range of southern Colorado it took only a little effort to get used to pumping my gas.

One of the things I always thought was sad during my time in New Jersey was the fact that some people never left the state or ever visited other parts of the country. In retrospect I've come to understand why. Everything is in a fifty mile radius of Union County. All kinds of food, the shore, the city and the ability of not having to actively seek something out to do something cool. Of course this made me jaded leaving me to think that there was nothing cool going on in my state or boring little town.

Living out in Colorado has given me a new perspective from the last six years. New York City and the tri-state area is the center of the universe. All the TV shows I remember were set in New York City. Fucking comics are set in New York City or analogues of New York City. It was the primary target of the 9/11 hijackers. Makes me wish that I was still living there. Of course under my own terms without any influence from family or friends. Right now that is simply ridiculous since I like the distance and I have nurtured a tidy little life for myself in Colorado. Did I mention it's not cramped or crowded out here? It isn't.

Most of this bubbled up in my tiny brain while working on a one-shot superhero campaign. I did research on superheroes and comic book plots only to realize there were hundreds of mentions of NYC.