Gaming: By the way, Menace of the Icy Spire (Living Forgotten Realms) is rough with only 4 players. We survived, barely. That does mean that it took a little longer. That first fight was the roughest (14 rounds of combat, with only one opponent on either side for the last 2 or 3).

On the bright side, my dragonborn cleric is now 3rd level. On the dark side, that means that she's too high to play Spellguard. I now have 2 third-level characters and three 1st level. Sigh. Whoops. I'd better play a 1st level character to get her to 2nd.

There's some bad news on the gaming front. Lost Goblin is closing its doors Wednesday. It's another victim of the crappy economy.

Family: Breakfast this morning with Chris's parents, and sister-in-law and niece. I felt a little sorry for the niece. She was probably bored silly.

After breakfast, we went to the grocery store. Finally. We've only been stopping by, 'to pick up one or two things,' for months. We got some of the staple items today. Then off to Best Buy for Chris to spend his gift cards.

I bought a game for myself; Polly Pride: Pet Detective ($10, whee). It's another find the hidden items game, with a variety of mini-games.

And tomorrow it's off to work again. I am not looking forward to it.

Gaming: Poor Diana ended up working late last night & missing gaming again. So we had a little one shot of someone trying to steal Amenhotep's staff from the Freedom City Museum's Egyptian exhibit. Poor David trying to come up with villains at the last minute. We fought Arctic Blast, a fellow we ended up naming Jalapeno (fire-based), Talon & Archer. They weren't so much a villain team as a group of villains. When Arctic Blast encased Archer & the staff in ice to keep Lady Celtic (Rosemary) from grabbing it with her telekinesis again, it showed a distinct lack of concern for Archer's well-being.

I missed the Raleigh bus (that would have entailed maybe 15 minutes of walking, 5 minutes downtown & 10 minutes to Rosemary's house) & ended up doing the transfer at the depot. I ran into Robin who runs Lost Goblin with her husband Richard (who was in my Shadowrun game years ago-the gaming world really is very small).

I talked to them a little & picked up an M&M book that I don't really need but that I've been looking at. I also joined their reward program and saw a really neat gaming accessory. It's basically very well-made map tiles with the scenery (road, river, campsite, rocks, steps etc in the wilderness set) already printed on them, double-sided. Chris picked me up from their store & we were late for the game.

I talked to Robin and Richard about running an Ironclaw demo game at their store. They're having a demo day August 25th or any Saturday would probably be good.

books: on the way to Raleigh, I almost finished We're Just Like You, Only Prettier. I read the last 3 essays this morning. They are really very funny. I half re-read/skimmed Naked in Death & stayed up too late.

tatting: I didn't get very far on the size 80 ecru cross. I made a knot that I don't want that I think will take a needle to get unknotted. That's the problem with size 80.

clothes: black slippers (febrezed last night), black slacks & belt, lilac polo, silver dome ring, hematite ring, ponytail held by large black elastic, 3 women pendant, & ~stained glass (plastic) magenta & blue earrings.