So, I am giving it a chance.

But, so far -- eh. I'm not finding it compelling.

Yeah, it's Stargate, so I am giving it the opportunity to pull me in like the others did, but I am not so sure about it. I like Eli and Lt. Scott, and TJ, but otherwise, not that interested. Doc has termed it Stargate-lactica because of the shaky cam thing and I have a tendency to agree with him.

Last nights episode was so far the best one, with the alien bugs and such. It reminded me the most of Stargate - alien world and such. But, ya know, I am having a hard time caring about the characters.

• Colonel Talford (Lou Diamond Philips) just annoys me in general. I think he's taking the pushy overbearing military guy a little too far and that makes him rather unlikeable. Actually, very unlikeable.
• Eli Wallace (David Blue) is a good character. He's young and inexperienced and knows that. His attitude and ability to handle himself in a tough situation is believable and likeable. He's one of the reasons that I still watch.
• Dr. Nicholas Rush (Robert Taylor) is a jerk to the extreme. I really could have done without the jackass scientist part. Yeah, I know this is his life's work and that they are all screwed, but man, cut the attitude.
  
• Colonel Everett Young (Justin Louis) may turn out to be a good character in the end, but I think he needs some work. I don't think as a leader he's really getting the chance to prove himself. He takes to many cues from Rush, who needs to go away.
• Lt. Matthew Scott (Brain Smith) is another promising character, but he needs a chance to get on screen more often. The actor plays the character well, but he hasn't really gotten to do much so far.
• Chloe Armstrong (Elyse Levesque) is just a whiny, "look at me" type that drives me nuts. She's more at home on a soap opera than in space. And really, the hook up with Scott? Not working for me. Eli was a better choice.
• Tamara Johnson, aka TJ (Alaina Huffman) has some definate potential. She proves that she's a doctor but also human. She knows that everything has gone to hell but she still makes sure to keep a cool head - most of the time.
• Ronald Greer (Jamil Walker Smith) should have been left in the brig on whatever planet they were on in the first place. He's annoying and crappy. His only emotion seems to be anger.

The others are all bit players and mostly uninteresting.

The thing that I keep in mind is that I didn't really like Atlantis the first few times I saw it either, but after a while I started to really get into it. So, you never know, but I have little faith.

The Halloween game was a success!

We ended up with nine total "characters":

• Dracula
• Frankenstein's Monster ("The Creature")
• The Invisible Man
• The Creature from the Black Lagoon ("The Gill Man")
• Wolfman
• The Mummy
• Bug Eyed Alien
• Robot Monster
• Ghost

The characters consisted of a few Pros and Cons and a quick little description. This game was by no means serious. In fact, Doc and Leaky Pete played The Gill Man and the Wolfman as grumpy, little old men. It was the height of hilarity.

The monsters ran away from the members of the TV show "Ghost Hunters", so this was a SciFi Original RolePlaying Game in a sense. Granted I know nothing about the TV show, so I just kinda bluffed it, but it didn't really matter. All that mattered was that the monsters could manage to keep from getting their pictures taken by the ghost hunters.

The setting was a haunted movie set out in the desert somewhere (Delware, suggested Doc). There were six lots - Set A: a Haunted Mansion soundstage; Set B: a Crashed Alien Spaceship soundstage; Set C: Swamp/Lagoon soundstage; Set D: Wild West soundstage: Set E: Modern City soundstage; and Set F: 50's Midwest town soundstage.

I didn't have as many players this year as usual since Party Gorilla had to work and Hamster had to go see his girlfriend, but we still had fun. We started out with Doc playing The Gill Man, Leaky Pete as the Wolfman and Jacob with no Nickname as the Bug Eyed Alien Monster. Gill Man was enjoying a nice dip in his lagoon soundstage, while Wolfman was playing cowboy in the Wild West soundstage and the Bug Eyed Alien had just crashed into the Crashed Alien Spaceship soundstage. There was lots of silliness and bad Jewish old man accents while the Alien went in search of stuff to fix his spaceship and earth women. They didn't last too long before they got their pictures taken. Rushing the camera men wasn't a good plan.

Leaky Pete pulled out the Ghost next and proceeded to possess one of the camera men and run around rampant making southern slave voices while doing so. Jacob whipped out the Robot who ran around saying "Does not compute!" and Doc pulled the Mummy out of storage in the basement of the old lingerie shop (pink is not his color). The Robot didn't last long, and Jacob ended up with Dracula next, who apparently was really hungry and ran around sucking all of the camera crew dry. Ghost managed to get his photo taken right after he finished possessing someone and the Mummy was too busy shambling down the street to get away from the oncoming camera.

Next Leaky Pete came up with The Creature, who woke up in a room in the top of the haunted mansion missing the Bride of Frankenstein, but she did leave behind her arm, just in case he got lonely. Doc got the Invisible Man next, who is completely insane (The Invisible Man, not Doc, he's just really goofy). Believe me, he played it up for all it was worth. I think by the time he was done we'd all lost a few san points.

After a while, Dracula drained pretty much all of the crew dry and the movie monsters, minus several of their friends, were left alone once again.

We had a blast for about two hours.

Sci Fi Original Pictures Presents a Sci Fi Original Role Playing Game "Movie Monster Madness"

Thanks to all for the well wishes about our little girl.

She is definitely one tough cookie, that's for sure. Her collarbone has healed nicely according to her last doctor's visit. She has a small knot from the calcification and it's a little tender, but the nurse says that's normal. She goes back next Monday to get the ok to take off the sling. Man, is she excited. I think her biggest concern is that she won't have to have the sling while she's dressed as Dorothy for Halloween. She's a crazy little girl.

The Halloween Game is coming up and I have de-railed my thoughts again. I have a hard time making up serious horror stuff for a game that's short. We typically have 5-6 hours free time for these games, so I want something that isn't going to take a ton of time. I did finally make a decision though.

-- Movie monsters that have to outrun the ghost hunters.

The PCs play one of ten movie monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, The Wolfman, The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein, a Zombie, Son of Dracula, Bride of Dracula, The Swamp Thing and The Creature From the Black Lagoon) that are still inhabiting an abandoned movie lot. A group of ghost hunters comes to check out the reports of hauntings only to discover that a lot more is there than they thought. The Monsters have to out run the ghost hunters and do their best to NOT get their pictures taken.

Everyone gets to play more than one monster, mostly cause one of my regular players gets killed a lot - I mean, a lot.

Let's see what else...

I FINALLY HAVE NEW CARPET!!

Can you tell that I'm happy? =o) Our old carpet was this hideous golden stuff that wasn't attached to the floor all the way and had stretched over the years (33 to be exact) and was stained and gross...etc. In fact, the carpet had pulled away from the tack strips and Lily fell a couple of years ago and cut her knee wide open on one of the tacks. It was nasty. And she asked "Mommy, why is there red paint on my knee?" What a kid.

But, anyway, our new carpet isn't actually new, it is used, but it's high end, stain resistant carpet with really nice padding (the old stuff was disentegrating as you stood on it). It's a lovely shade of emerald green and soooo nice. I'm thrilled. Thanks to my in-laws for my wonderful carpet.

Now I just have to get everything put back where it belongs before this weekend's game -- and we need to get to the litter box. Ronin can make smellies.

Every year we host a Halloween game (not actually on Halloween as we take Lily trick-or-treating) and every year, inevitably, our friend Kyle, hereafter known as Hamster, gets his character killed. It's great.

The most memorable Halloween game for me was the one that I ran where the PCs got called to an island for a one-of-a-kind hunting opportunity. Everything goes wrong almost immediately and within the first five minutes of the game the PCs are arguing with each other in a large room. Doc has a shotgun, Party Gorilla tries to grab it, I make a roll, the shotgun goes off and Hamster's guy gets a hole through his chest. Five minutes. That's all it took. Five whole minutes. Since this is a regular thing for our game group, I made extra characters. I usually have to. Later on, Hamster's back-up character gets bitten (yes, bitten) by some plant creature and proceeds to spend the rest of the game turning into one of these things. I was great fun.

This year, however, I am having a little more trouble with my idea. I had originally thought up an old west game where an old stagecoach makes its way into a small town and stops there for the night. The PCs get stuck there and find that not all is right in the town. I figured out what was in the one horse town and who was there, but that was about all I could come up with.

Old west just wasn't doing it for me.

So, I decided on a really nasty dungeon crawl.

But, nah, not really a good idea for me for a Halloween game. I would rather run that for just a regular Sunday game.

So, instead, here is my idea: The Vatican Investigative Service (V.I.S) sets out to hunt down a rogue demon that is terrorizing the English Countryside.

I've had this idea for some time but just now decided to use it.

My only problem - SciFi Original Pictures Presents a SciFi Original Role-playing Game....

I can't think of a title.

Wouldn't you know it, the day that I am actually off and have no plans to go out and do anything, the rotation on SCiFi (excuse me SyFy) is Brimstone. I loved this show. I always thought that the idea was a really good one. But I never realized that everything has a bluish cast to it.

Doesn't matter.

I am glad to watch the show again.

Maybe this means that it will be hitting DVD soon...

You'd think that kids are either made completely of rubber or out of concrete, but apparently not.

My daughter tripped and fell on Saturday night, right after I walked in the door from work. She tossed the books one way and she went the other. Screaming and crying ensued. I had no idea what had happened. I thought she had just bruised her bone and we continued on our way - read stories, said goodnight and went about our business. She woke me up about 2:30 in the morning when she crawled into bed with us. After that she slept on the couch. I didn't think anything of it. She's Lily - she doesn't get hurt. She just doesn't. Eight o'clock the next morning she's crying. All I can think of is that she really bruised herself. But there was no bruise and no swelling. So, we went on.

Our friends came over, we gamed, we laughed. She napped on the couch, was listless and not herself. It still never occurred to me that something might be wrong. She went to bed normally and slept all night long without any problem.

It wasn't until after almost a full day at daycare, that I realized something must be wrong. Her daycare lady said that she was favoring that arm (her left one) all day and started crying at the park when she bumped it. She suggested that it might be dislocated. I got on the horn and called the doctor to get her an emergency appointment. Now, I started to think that something was wrong...

...I felt like the WORST parent in the world.

I hadn't believed her when she said that it still hurt. I just thought that she was looking for attention - like most kids do when they get hurt.

At the doctor's office, I felt even worse when I found out what was wrong.

She broke her collarbone.

My child - five years old - had broken her collarbone.

Jeesh! Now I really feel awful. My little pumpkin. The child that bounces back from everything! But this time, she didn't bounce back all the way. This time there was a broken bone.

And what does she say? "Do they have pink slings?"

That's my girl!! Always looking for the bright side of things. Granted, they don't have pink slings, but we put a Strawberry Shortcake sticker on it and we're going to paint flowers on it later.

Man, what a weekend.

Every year my little girl picks something for Halloween. Usually it's a witch. Or some form of one. Her first Halloween costume that I made for her was a pumpkin/ghost/kitty witch (she couldn't decide which one she wanted to be, so I mixed it all up with colors and accents). It worked out well in the end. And she was most depressed when she grew out of it.

Last year, she wanted to be a witch like Hermione Granger, but with a different costume. So I started on a nice little costume for her, but the satin started to disintegrate when I was sewing it, so she ended up being Supergirl instead. Grandma stepped in to save the day on that one at the last minute with a store bought costume. Nothing wrong with that. She can still wear it and does on a regular basis.

This year, she started out wanting to be a witch, until Grandma bought her a pair of ruby slippers. So, she decided on Dorothy instead. We bought all of the fabric and notions and she picked the pattern out of the pattern book. Needless to say, she was excited beyond belief.

That was month ago. I have a hard time sometime getting myself together to get started on sewing. I laid it out numerous times to see how to cut it out, to make sure that we have enough fabric. There were a few times that I wasn't so sure about it - lost my nerve so to speak.

Until today...

I cut out the pattern last night. And at 9:00AM today I started sewing. And at 5:30PM this evening - about 15 minutes before my dear little girl and Doc were to arrive home, I finished.

I have a hard time believing that I sewed this beautiful costume, but I did it! And she was absolutely thrilled. She put it on immediately and grabbed her stuffed Toto and basket and ran to her room to change.