The Unicorn continues to live in paper-land

Having given up on the useless chimps that are BT, i managed to get hold of our ISP and got them to sort out our line so Naidel and I can finally have internet and I can stop blogging in work time. It will, however, take 20 days to sort the line out AND they had to down grade us because our line wont support high speed broadband! I was not best pleased when i received that email, i can tell you! All this waiting around means that the new DnD website - to be named 'The Order of the Purple Unicorn' - is still on paper at the moment. Grrr. I have some articles that i've written and the campaign journal in my folder and i am dying to get them typed up and on the net!!! The new website is for players in our DnD group and anyone else who wants to take an interest in what we're doing or read some rambly articles that lightly touch on DnD topics but generally veer off at a tangent. Of the latter kind, i am expecting zero visitors, but, hey, you never know. Someone out there may just be THAT bored. The shiny new site will feature the forementioned articles written by yours truly, and occasionally one of the other members, a news page for up-to-the-minute updates on anything taht may be happening, the campaign journal for our current game, DnD and character related fiction, artwork, photos, character blogs, character profiles and stats, a message board forumy thingy, a membership facility, a links page and a 'contact us' facility. I think. The website is entirely collaborative, and will feature work, articles, etc, from members of our group and any other roleplay enthusiasts who wish to contribute. We may also have a sister site for our Warhammer 40k campaign, but that has yet to be decided. So for all of you who are creatively minded, drop me an email with your work and i will consider it for the site. Go on, what are you waiting for, get writing!

Chopped!

That feeling of ‘time for a change’ has been hanging over me for a month or so now. And despite some fairly major changes (i.e moving into our flat and having Naidel home for good), I still had that feeling. I got a new suit. It went away for a day. I joined the gym. It went away for a week. I tried some extra make-up. It never left. So as I was running my hands through my long red hair on Friday afternoon, I finally hit upon it. A hair cut! That’ll do it! I searched on the Internet and found some snazzy short do’s, booked a next-day appointment and folded my arms triumphantly. Saturday morning came and I refused to go. I sat on the sofa clutching my hair and refused to sacrifice it to change. Naidel marched me into town and I had no choice but to go. I lingered outside for a little while relishing the feeling of my hair wrapping itself around me and keeping my neck and ears warm. Then I took a deep breath and walked in. She sat me down in that chair that always seem to resemble a torture chair with padding, and lifted chunks of my hair test its weight. Then she took the scissors and brutally chopped off a large quantity of my precious ginger locks with one snip. As she sent me off to have my hair washed and prepared for the rest of the cut, I felt for those red tresses that were sat on the table, separated from their fellow follicles forever more. I watched tenuously as she clipped here and there, straightened some bits and waxed others until she finally let me out of the barbaric Chair of Doom. I looked in the mirror. It wasn’t me that looked back. It was some warped doppelganger. A warped doppelganger that looked good though. My first thought was ‘my mum is going to kill me!’. She always said I should never have a bob. Oh dear. I didn’t look bad though…..actually, it looked kind of…..chic? Stylish, even? I flicked my layered sweeping fringe with a renewed confidence. The cathartic need for change dissipated, and was replaced by a new buoyancy. I strode down the road home, casually flicking my new short locks and checking the ‘new me’ out in shop and car windows. Everyone keeps saying how much it suits me and how much better I look (did I really look THAT bad before?). Despite the compliments and the good feelings my new hair gives me, I still feel a pang of sorrow and longing for my long red mane, cut down in its prime like stalks of wheat. *sniff* Fare thee well hair! Our paths shall never cross again….

Sneeze, sniffle, snuffle

* cough cough * I have fallen prey to the evil common cold! * sniff * My nose is bunged up, I’m full of phlegm, my head feels like its full of cotton wool and my throat is sore causing an annoying tickly cough. Bleggghhhhhhhhh. I have a yummy strawberry mousse in front of me, and I cant taste it because my taste buds are buried under fur and slime!!! I’d rather be tucked up under a blankie with tissue up my nose, a warm fruit tea and my nice warm boyfriend to cuddle than be stuck in this freezing cold pit of despond! I despise the winter and its chilly tendrils.
On a lighter note, one that doesn’t involve me moaning, we went to a remembrance service at Duxford yesterday and Naidel and his boys had their medals presented to them. I was really proud of my Naidel. It was a really nice service, despite the cold. When we got home last night I had planned to do lots of things, one of them being a flat tidy (Naidel says it looks like a herd of Terrascue stormed through the flat on a pizza-eating binge), but instead, I fell asleep on the sofa whilst watching copious amounts of Bones. Thus, I shall have to have a quick tidy when I get home from work.
I have finally sorted out a character plan for the new DnD campaign – I have gone for an elven sorceress from Evereska. She goes by the name of Anaia Alorien. More on her as the game begins! Right, I’m off to blow my nose and take some more strepsils * achooooooo! *

And so it begins....

I am still having problems moving due to the evils of excerise. My back hurts so much!!! I just want to go home and curl up on my sofa with my blankie and a good book or an episode of Spooks. But no, i'm stuck in this freezing office with people who while away their day discussing the calorie content of a chicken kiev. My friend Sam isn't here today as she was evacuated from her house at 3am due to the flooding in Gt Yarmouth. The poor girl is stuck in some community centre somewhere in a pair of jogging bottoms and a baggy t-shirt, not knowing if her house has been flooded, if her photo albums are destroyed, her sofas saturated, and her ceramic hair straighteners shorted.
Anyway, it’s that time again, folks! Our new Dungeons and Dragons campaign is due to commence next week, with our very own Naidel as DM. From what I can make out, it’s going to be a proper dungeon crawl, and its going to be largely roleplay-heavy, as opposed to predominantly hack-and-slash. Set in our beloved Forgotten Realms, this campaign will be the lead up to the release of 4th Edition, due sometime in May 2008…I think. I am still dithering about my character choice – at the moment I am divided between going back to my roots and doing an Elf Sorceress, or doing something relatively new and going for a Deep Imaskari Sorceress/Rogue. Hmmm…..decisions…methinks it requires some poring of the DnD and FR books! Right, that my weekend booked! Oh, except for Sunday, we’re going to Naidel’s medal presentation in Duxford, so we shall be out most of the day.
More exciting news, this morning I received an email from none other than Shelly Mazzanoble! I sent her an email to thank her on behalf of my gender for her book ‘Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress: A Girls Guide to the Dungeons and Dragons Game’ and she sent me a really nice message back. She is apparently playtesting the much-anticipated 4th edition at the moment, so Astrid is on hiatus for now. Those of you who haven’t gone out and bought Shelly’s book yet, SHAME ON YOU, DO SO NOW! Seriously, get off your backsides, go buy the book, and get into the game peeps! As our new campaign progresses, I will keep you all up to do with the goings on as much as possible. I am considering setting up a small webpage dedicated to the roleplay group where we can post campaign journals, short stories etc….kind of like an online newspaper….is that sad? I really am Queen of the Geeks…..

The Evils of Exercise

My back is screaming with pain, my arms are limp and lifeless, my legs are pulsating and my feet are raw and blistered. One would think that i have just trekked the Himalayas or run the length of the Great Wall of China. Nope. I have simply been to a dance class at my new gym. All right, all right, stop laughing! I nearly didn’t go, but Naidel made a few comments about cleaning up the flat if i wasn’t going, and i was outta that door like a shot.
The changing room was filled with lithe, bleach-blonde beauties who apparently had no shame in standing around completely starkers and having a gossip. I prayed to God these girls were not in my class. I shyly changed out of my jeans and into my cheap leggings and wandered out past the fashionistas to the studio. The body combat class was still in full swing - in my haste to get away from the washing up and hoovering, i was half an hour early. I stood outside the studio, staring at my feet and feeling tension and anxiety knot in my stomach. I never was good at joining new groups, nervousness always got the better of me. What if i fall over? What if i can't keep up? What if i managed to trip one of the other girls when doing kick-steps? By the time the studio was empty and ready for the dance class i was practically catatonic with fear and nerves. I was comforted by the fact that most of the girls in the group were pretty much the same shape as me, some of them bigger, in fact. That dispelled a little of my worries, and as the music started i felt a little more confident. Until i caught sight of myself in the mirror, that is. I'm sure gym mirrors are specially crafted to make you look as fat and ugly as possible, so you work harder to do something about it. As we started the warm up, i was appalled to see my body looking so middle-aged and out of shape as i shimmied about.
I was lost in the first five minutes of the warm up. The nerves had counteracted my coordination and i found myself tripping up left right and centre. When i saw that i wasn't the only one, my legs and arms finally started acting the way my brain was telling them to. After the 'warm up' (by which point i was puffing like a smoker who's been stuck in a no-smoking building for 48 hours and has finally been set free to have a fag) we finally started the routine. There was a great deal of hop-skip-and-thrusting, and just when we'd gotten the hang of it, she added another bit, then another, then another, and more and more and more bits until i was completely lost and my brain my starting to sizzle. Eventually, we put it all together, and after about 4 attempts we all seemed to be getting it right. We were shaking our booties, swinging our hips with the best of them. As we took a breather, i felt a little bit of pride and accomplishment. I was a bit concerned that my whole body was bright red and pulsing and my lungs were struggling with intakes of oxygen, but hey, I danced the whole routine for Justin Timberlake’s ‘SexyBack’! We all headed back to our places with a sense of accomplishment. Each one of us was standing a little straighter, heads no longer downcast. Until the teacher said those fateful words – “Right, now we going to do it at double speed”. DOUBLE SPEED!?!?! I CAN BARELY MOVE AT NORMAL SPEED AND YOU WANT ME TO MOVE AT TWICE THAT?!?! ARE YOU MAD WOMAN?!?!? I wasn’t the only one with shock and aggravation plastered on my red and sweaty face we as sped through the routine over and over again. When the music finally stopped and we were set free from the evil hall of mirrors, the pain began. Great seething pain all over my body, and especially in my back. What had she done to me? I was a broken, hollow shell of a woman whose body had just been violated by exercise.
I walked slowly home, and the sight of my squishy-squashy sofa was a great comfort. The sight of the piled-up dishes and dirty worktops was not, however. I sighed heavily, unpacked the shopping, did my housewifely duties and welcomed my Naidel home from his evening at the TA with an ‘owwwwwwwwww’ when he hugged me. “I’m old and non-flexible,” I said with great dismay as he asked how my class was. He looked at me with mild amusement and said “yup, I could have told you that.” I trained the last of my energy on an icy glare. He quickly backtracked and told me that “that’s what happens when you don’t exercise for so long", and I’ll “get better with practice.” Bah.
Getting out of bed this morning was harder than usual. I actually couldn’t sit up, I could barely move my arms, and my legs protested intensely against movement by sending little shocks of pain all the way up to my hips. And as for my back, I think I may have pulled every muscle I own in it! So what have we learned ladies and gellyspoons? EXERCISE IS EVIL!!! IT MAKES YOUR BODY VERY ANGRY WITH YOU!!!
Right, I’m off to limber up for next week. What, you didn’t think a few pulled muscles and some back pain would stop me, did you?

Shelly Mazzanoble - a goddess among women

When Naidel and I were persusing the roleplay game section in a local bookstore (one of our regualr activities), Naidel suddenly remembered that he had seen a book that was "perfect for me", and apparently had some amusing ancedote about a penguin which he attempted to retell unsuccessfully. I raised an eyebrow in my usual 'you've clearly gone off your nut' fashion, and he brandished a pink and white book bearing the words 'Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress: A Girls's Guide to the Dungeons and Dragons Game'. I have to admit, i was immediately intregued, and Naidel insisted i would find it both funny and informative. I looked at the book and flicked through it. It did have many pink side bars full of interesting information.....once again, the voice of my credit card won through, and i walked out of Waterstones brandishing my book. That was Sunday. I havent managed to put the book down since then. I finished it this morning, and i have to say its pure genius! I really wish that book was out when i first started playing DnD! Shelly Mazzanoble and i seem to have a lot in common, even her character choice resembles mine! Any girl wanting to learn the DnD game and wanting a good laugh whilst learning, buy this book! Shelly Mazzanoble is the kind of writer i aspire to be, providing her readers with an even mix of information, description and sharp, intelligent humour.
You can find out more about Shelly Mazzanoble and her book 'Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress' here. There's even an amusing interview with her mother which is spookily like a recent conversation with my own mother. GO BUY THE BOOK!!!