halbelly.JPG

halbelly.JPG
Originally uploaded by hamaker88.

In No Particular Order....

First off, my big doof of a cat, Hal, sprained his paw while loping around the house on Friday night. It got worse over the weekend, and Rat Girl kindly offered to assist me in taking him to the vet on Monday morning. The vet is a wonderful guy, everything went fine, Hal got a cortisone shot and behaved remarkably well. Well, that is, until we got home and set him down for .5 seconds to close the door before removing his leash. He rocketed up the stairs, the leash caught on the bannister, clotheslined him about halfway up, and he crashed back down on top of two gallons of water I had sitting on the steps for refilling the fish tank. One of them exploded, water went everywhere, and he went running back up the stairs to the extent of the still trapped leash and stared at me, white-eyed and trembling, with a look that said "This is All Your Fault." It was spectacular, though not in a good way. It took him the better part of 48 hours to recover emotionally. This morning, both his limp and his demeanor are improved.

I'm happy to announce my good job news, hinted at in a previous post; I'm now working part-time back in the hobby industry, for a company called Crocodile Games. For those who aren't quite so geeky as me and my fellow gamer nerds--basically they make small metal toy soldiers which people buy unpainted; they then paint them and use them to play tabletop wargames. In the Croc's case, the genre is kind of a fantasy Egyptian thing, with jackal-headed troops and bipedal crocodiles. The game is quite good, actually, I like it better than Warhammer, and the miniatures are great! The company has been doing great business since my friend Fitz started it back in '01, so much so that they've now got more orders than he and his partner can effectively handle. So I'm there to help them start the transition from being essentially a one-man operation to being a serious player in the hobby industry. It could come to nothing, or it could mean that a year from now I'll be working full-time for a successful company, going to conventions around the country to rep for the game. We'll see.

Third, I taught myself to use Adobe Illustrator this weekend, with the welcome assistance of Li's book on the topic. Nice program, like a highly complex and flexible version of Appleworks Draw. Or MacDraw, remember that?

Last, my Coffee Bitch tells me she has got her hands on a cookbook that will teach her how to make architectural cakes of epic proportions. I've placed my order for a cake that looks like Chartres Cathedral. Get to work, Sally!