Out Of The Tunnel

I spent the better part of the last two weeks going through my massive game collection, plus books, comics, DVDs, and other things that are heavy. Boxing it all up and carting it around made me think of the old saying, "Friends help you move. Real friends help you move books."

Some of the stuff went to Half-Price Books. The prices aren't the best, but it's one-stop convenience, and they got most of the non-game material. The rest is going to Noble Knight, a huge online game dealer located in Janesville, WI, not too far from my old stomping grounds in my TSR days at Lake Geneva. I have catalogued 24 boxes of stuff, and we are in the process of getting it all shipped their way and sold. So far, things have gone really well and I can give them a high recommendation.

So what's in these 24 boxes, weighing well over half a ton? The single biggest contributor was Call of Cthulhu. For several decades I pretty much bought every new CoC supplement that came out. I haven't actually played CoC in years, mind you, but I kept all the stuff, y'know, just in case. Plus, until I found Noble Knight, I had no idea how to deal with the pile other than throwing it all away (which I just wasn't going to do). Other games healthily represented included Axis & Allies Miniatures and Boardgames, XXVc (remember the Buck Rogers roleplaying game?), D&D in all its various editions, plus a healthy collection of Steve Jackson Games material (mostly employee comps) dating back to my many years working there.

My office was a total disaster area, with filled bookcases in every open wall space, plus a pile of stuff on the floor filling the rest of the room to a depth of about three feet. But now ... the furniture is still here, but the rest of it is gone! That means the painters and carpet people can get in here and spruce things up, which I'm looking forward to.

In other news, I RTD (Return To Duty) tonight at the IRS. I don't expect things to be any different from last year, but we'll see.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Got the call -- going back to work at the IRS for another tax season, starting Jan. 31. I work in the ITIN division, which is responsible for issuing Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers to people who don't have a Social Security Number but still need to deal with the IRS, either as filers, claimed dependents, or something else. I work the night shift, 5 pm to 1:30 am, because it pays more than days.

I will not see Louise very much the next few months, as our schedules are complete opposites. That's tough, and things will only get more complicated as we continue to work on moving. Speaking of, the interior painting is almost done, and I am closing in on finishing the liquidation of my vast game and book collection. I feel like an archaeologist as I dig deeper and deeper into stacks, boxes, and the occasional Hoarders-style pile of RPG books, old magazines, comic books, card games, board games, CCG sets, and more. It's quite the trip down memory lane, coupled with many "what was I thinking?" moments. Good times.

I Got Hacked!

Every once in a while, I get an email from a friend, but it's not really from them. The copy is usually pretty generic, or has nothing to do with them at all, and it invites me to click on a link. I usually delete the email and think to myself, "Poor sucker got hacked. Glad I'm too smart for that."

Well . . . um . . . you see, the thing is . . . it happened to me. I got some emails earlier this week from friends, asking, "uh, did you mean to send this to me?" And I was appalled. I got suckered. I know who did it, too -- Seth Myers of Saturday Night Live fame, via his Twitter feed. The tweet didn't make a lot of sense, but I figured he was a comedian and maybe he was making some sort of joke. Turns out the joke was on me.

The upside of computer problems is that it gives me an excuse to talk to my personal IT guru, my stepson Ben. He walked me through Spybot and Adblock Plus and answered some other computer questions I had been saving up for the next time I talked to him. He and his lovely bride seem to be doing well, but he sounded tired -- you gotta work a lot of hours to make a living at the wages WalMart pays.

Then, as a bonus, I put his mother on the line, which I know made Louise's night. That felt good.

No, They Don't Come On Wheels

My lovely wife dropped some interesting literature on me last week in regard to our search for a smaller, cheaper place to live -- brochures and promotional material from a manufactured housing company.

My first reaction was not positive. Many years ago (my senior year in college) I lived in what was called back then a "trailer home." I don't remember if it was on wheels or not, but it was a dump, cheap and flimsy. It did fit my economic needs, however, as we were splitting the rent four ways. But it did forever color my opinion of this type of housing.

Until Louise took me back to the company's lot yesterday afternoon. I was really impressed by the quality, the space, the commitment to energy efficiency, and the prices and financing options. The homes are installed on traditional foundations, not put up on blocks or wheels. This could work.

Speaking of work, the interior house painting is coming along nicely, but there's a ton of stuff to do of the sorting/packing/hauling variety. The only way to tackle a pile this big is one bite at a time. So I'm off to nibble ...

Book Tour 2012

Still reading . . .

4. The Last Testament: A Memoir. By God and David Javerbaum. "God" retells most of the major stories of the Bible (Creation, The Flood, Abraham and Isaac, Exodus from Egypt, Jesus), shedding new light on the events with behind-the-scenes tidbits. (For example, God gets so caught up in the awesome display of faith Abraham shows by agreeing to kill his son, that He forgets to stop the sacrifice, until an angel reminds him at the last second.)

Smaller sections answer the big theological questions: Why do bad things happen to good people? Does God answer prayers, especially at sporting events? What about all the other religions? The God of this book is a bit dysfunctional, with some serious anger management problems (which he cops to), and a philanderer (dalliances with other universes). I wasn't looking for theological insight in this book, and I didn't get any. What I was looking for -- some laughs -- I got plenty of. Worth the time.

Book Tour 2012

I want to read more books in 2012, and one way to keep myself motivated is to blog about them. So 10 days in to the New Year, I have already knocked off a few:

1. Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too. By Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. You may remember Garant and Lennon from the Comedy Central series Reno 911!, but mostly they work as Hollywood screenwriters. Their goal, as they entertainingly relate in the book, is not to write good movies, but to write successful ones. And there's lots of serious, practical advice on how to do just that. Unfortunately, their very first rule -- move to L.A. -- was a dealbreaker for me, but a lot else of what they said was great advice for writers (and game designers) in general. Plus it's a very funny read.

2. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. By Max Brooks (son of comedy legend Mel). When we went to visit my stepson Ben and his wife just before Christmas, at some point the conversation turned to this book. Ben said he hadn't read it, and Louise and I both insisted he should. So we tracked down our copy when we got back home, and I'm sending it off to him. But before I packed it up, I opened it and started reading, just to see if it was as good as I remembered it. Finished it early the next day. It was as good as I remembered it.

3. Pawnee: The Greatest Town In America. By Leslie Knope. Leslie Knope, of course, is the fictional character played by Amy Poehler in the NBC comedy Parks & Recreation, and this is a tie-in book to separate the fans from their money. They even worked the book into the storyline last fall for one of those synergistic cross-promotion things. Which would normally annoy me, but the book is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Fair warning: If you don't know the characters and story of the TV show, many of the jokes will make no sense at all. For fans, though, this is a laugh-out-loud (which I did many times, much to the consternation of my wife) treat.

Iowa Turns Out Like Illuminati

If I'm going to be a regular blogger, I guess I have to write about politics every once in a while, right?

Watched a lot of the coverage of the Iowa caucuses last night. I didn't learn anything new about any of the candidates. The big surprise for me was the late surges by both Rick Santorum and Ron Paul to make it a three-way race moving on to the rest of the January primaries.

But why these two? A few months ago, when the Ames straw poll kicked things off, it was Michelle Bachmann who had the momentum as the "candidate who wasn't Mitt Romney." Then her light faded with the brief advent of the Donald Trump candidacy, and then the Rick Perry run, which looked like a rocket sled to stardom until he opened his mouth. And then it was Herman Cain's turn, and then it was Newt Gingrich's turn, and finally Santorum and Paul. There might have been other candidates to surge into the "not Mitt" slot, but the GOP started to run out of people, and more importantly, time. Like a game of musical chairs, whoever was riding the bubble when the music stopped and people had to actually cast a ballot, would take the prize.

And that brings me to Illuminati, the classic card game by Steve Jackson Games. There are several strategies to winning that have nothing to do with how you play the cards and manage your resources. It's all about laying low and appearing to not be a threat, all the while alarming the rest of your opponents over how close someone else is to winning. If you bubble too soon, the rest of the players will gang up on you to bring you down. If you bubble at the right time -- after several other bubbles have been shot down -- your opponents will be out of resources to stop you and you can step into the winner's circle.

If Bachmann's bubble had been the last to emerge, instead of the first, then maybe she'd be the one with all the momentum. Ditto for Perry, Cain, and even Gingrich. The lesson here, as in Illuminati, is simple: don't make your move too soon.

Moving Update

Things got suddenly serious this week. Louise rented a storage unit and enlisted the help of some strapping young men volunteered up by some of her knitting parlor friends, and a goodly chunk of spare and/or unused furniture got carted out of the house. This empties out a couple of rooms, which will allow the painting and floor work to begin.

And I met with a realtor who thinks the whole thing is doable, from selling our current house to finding something smaller and cheaper. Of course, it's his job to be optimistic, so we'll see.

Now, the task is to divide every single thing in the house into five categories. They are:

• Stuff to hang on to and take to the new house
• Stuff to put in storage (this category should be zero, but we'll see)
• Stuff to donate to charity
• Stuff to sell
• Stuff to throw away

Let the fun begin!