That is not dead which can eternal lie

Call of Cthulhu was written in 1926. 1926! Isn't that fascinating?

Long time no see, folks. Some stuff I want to get out of the way before we talk:

- the site was recently down for over a week and it was only partially my fault
- I might upgrade the forums again, specifically the registration/login bits
- I'd say I'm sorry for being away for a year, but that'd be a lie

There. Now we can talk.

I don't know about you, but this has been the busiest year of my life -- on all fronts. I'd bore you with the details, so let me sum it up for you: it's all good. Specifically, the purchase of the house went off without a hitch; it's been about a year now and we've come across no oddities or little hidden upsets or anything even remotely similar to that. I haven't killed Rose yet, so it would seem the business venture was a sound one.

Speaking of Rose, you'll be happy to know that despite my own silence on the front page she's been fairly productive. She's completed the first part of a personal project, a concept piece called Voidbringer. Check that out here. The final product will be broken up into 3 'books', the first of which is now complete.

Are we still playing video games? No. We've given those up in favor of yoga and musical therapy sessions on weekends.

HA HA HA! Fuck that.

Of course we still play video games. We're working our way through Guitar Hero 3's Hard mode co-op campaign (Izzy and Judy FTW!), and we're still playing WoW regularly. Looking forward to Diablo 3 (OMFG how long have I been waiting...) and to this new KotOR MMORPG I've been hearing whispers about. That being said, if the new Knights MMO is good, it'll be really difficult to switch over given how our WoW guild has grown in the past year; so many IRL folks have joined us online, it's crazy! But awesome. Also, we've purchased the 4th Edition D&D core rulebooks and have started to poke around in the system -- it's not bad, but it's very video game-esque. The best part? How Rose's sister died 5 times during one combat before learning a very important rule: rogues are not tanks.

Slowly, very slowly, I've acclimatized Rose to metal music. Now that she can just barely stand the sound of one, maybe two mainstream metal bands, I've decided to take her along with my BF and I to Mayhem next weekend -- a great big outdoor show (in Toronto) featuring Disturbed, Slipknot, Dragonforce, and Mastodon. She'll hate 90% of it, but she will love Dragonforce -- and that's good enough for me! On the plus side, neither she, my BF, nor I look anything like metalheads; at least, that way, we'll all look out of place together. No one will instantly know she likes Garth Brooks...unless, that is, she wears her cowboy hat. She has one. I saw it, and it unsettled me.

I had an impromptu, startlingly in-depth philosophical discussion with one of my employees the other day. Before then, I knew nothing about him and admittedly had difficulty gleaning information about him through simple observation (which, to the trained eye, typically yeilds substantial results). I feel good about the whole thing, because now I have a few more pieces of the puzzle -- even though I by no means have a complete picture. And that's alright. Random occurrences of that nature please me more than citrus fruit...and if you know anything about me, you'll know that's pretty dire. The satisfaction I get from figuring people out or gathering data is so keen; I like being reminded, from time to time, of what it is in life that apparently makes my brain happiest.

Rose has an iTouch. Yeah. She broke down and bought one 'cause she couldn't get an iPhone due to the unbelievably high usage fees. I heard about it for weeks. Weeks. I think it's ghey, but I guess playing Tetris on it is pretty fun.

Finally: if you haven't already, go see the Dark Knight movie. That one from-behind shot of the Joker standing there with a pipe in his hand, staring out the window with a couple dogs milling around behind him? Just wow.

♠ KA