The Diceman Cometh

See what I did with that title? Genius. On my monster walk today I dropped into Mission Games, our friendly neighbourhood games store to stock up on geek stuff. I purchased a spiffy new set of blue and white dice for the upcoming roleplaying sessions and some card sleeves for Dominion. I look forward to rolling the dice until the corners rub off.

I also discovered that they are holding a charity gaming event in September, details can be found here at Gamealot. Looks interesting and I may be strolling along for a look. A very helpful assistant gave me lots of info which handily bounced off my dehydrated skull.

Walking for the thrill of walking

This week has seen quite a large increase in the amount of walking my stuggy little legs have been forced to endure. I've done Servus Place to home, roughly 6.2km, another 6.2km walk form that kind of area to home, and today I walked to our bank and back for a total of over 10km. Today was definitely the hardest as all the others were done in the morning while this was at midday with temps of 25 plus.

So that part of the regime is going well, the food side is slowly improving, we went out for a meal yesterday and I had something with actual veggies, and I managed not to eat it all and there's another portion for another time. I also made some fat-free cookies, accidently I hastily add, but they stuck together and they're edible and much healthier :)

Walk, walk, walk, free breakfast, walk, walk

This morning my fairly regular early morning walk was pleasantly broken up by a free brekkie at subway. And it wasn't half bad, small coffee of good quality and a ham, egg and cheese muffin. Not something I would normally choose, however I was nicely surprised and would recommend it, especially at the price. (Targetted at you Guthrie :)

Preternational

Baby related update from the fool himself, I can take an interest too!

I've finished the fourth and last coat to the babies room and it looks damn yellow in there now. As you may have picked up Canadian paint is rubbish, we purchased a supposedly good quality paint and it still took 4 coats, pish and tish I say. Of course Jacqui is still to inspect the final work so there may be bits to touch up as yet ........... oo er....... one for the English readers there. Hmm looking at myself I need another shower, yellow freckles adorn me generously. We still have to put up the border Jacqui brought back from her trip and then we're pretty much done. For our percieved quality of Canadian borders see Canadian paint above.

And secondly we went to our first prenatal class last night and there was a fair amount of information and potential grossness, probably more information but it was close. We went through the basics of a 'normal' labour, taking 2-48 hours which seem to involve Jacqui breathing and me being supportive. While the former is likely the latter could be seen as less so.
We also went through what is expected of both of us, when to go to the hospital, how to spot problems and warning signs, what to do just before going etc. etc. And then actual birth was explained in some depth, this included all kinds of bodily fluids, things contracting and dilating and apparently also a small person. And although both of us were nervous before going, it was well worth it. On an unrelated note Jacqui bought me icecream on the way home.

Freudian Slip?

I hope Richard really meant ante-natal and not anti-natal in his previous post.

Growing Pains

Well Jacqui's returned from the homeland and she had a good time by all accounts. Since her return we've been doing some fairly grown-up things like buying paint for the babies room, and a large mat for the new office.

To balance this out I've joined a roleplaying group, time to break out my wizard hat and staff once more!

However Jacqui has handily trumped that move by booking us in to baby training (anti-natal) classes. I'm not sure anything can beat that for crushing the spirit and preparing one for a life of servitude and drudgery........... although perhaps a +5 Cloak of Hiding may help.

Nerdsearch 2010

In the last week I have begun my search for nerds like me in this great and massive land. I want to get back into the world of roleplaying and possible WH40K, although that's much less likely due to cost.

I have found this lovely thing Edmonton Tabletop Role-Playing Community which I am feeling out as we speak. Finding mature players is the challenge atm although they do seem to have something up there today!

We have also been running occasional boardgame nights with some friends and hope to carry that on. Yes that's me AND Jacqui, she's more of a nerdlette but coming along nicely:)

And lastly, although possibly not on the nerd front I hate to tar people with the geekbrush unfairly, lovely Annette has put me in touch with a friend of hers that also moved to Edmonton. And I have initiated first contact :)

Early Sunday funtime

Well my Sunday has been nowhere near where your minds tooks you after the title. I was at the gym at 7:30, cutting the grass at 9:30 then sweeping the patios at 10:30. Probably the healthiest but least fun Sunday morning I've had for a while, it did feel good to get stuff done though.

I did play World of Goo a bit, fun mindbending game, and lunch is calling, so that will be good too. With Jacqui still gone I have been catching up with some films, both good and bad. Friday was Cop Out, which was okay and a coupole of beers helped that one along. And yesterday was The Bourne Ultimatum (seen before but very enjoyable), and lastly Men who Stare at Goats, which was a bit disappointing.

I've also seen a chunk of Family Guy season 8 and American Dad season 4, giving up WoW has given me a whole bunch of time, who would have guessed?

Lunchtime now, and just a quick note, the posts while Jacqui is in the UK have been a bit more pedestrian than normal just to let her know what's going on over here, she likes to know these things and she does worry :)

Many Recycling are done

Today has been gentler day after all the exercise and stuff yesterday. I have emptied the garage of recycling, both the stuff i get paid for and the other and somehow less interesting stuff.

This, combined with a touch of tidying has transformed my manspace. I have space to move in there now and less likelihood of damaging myself or my stuff. I dare say we could almost fit a car in there now, what will they think of next. The paid recycling has also increased my 'earnings' this year by a small amount, this will go towards bran and jogging accessories for my new healthy lifestyle :P

A small slice of Canadiana

This morning, finding myself alone but with the important addition of a vehicle, I decided to check out the Canadian obsession with pancake breakfasts. They seem to delight in throwing these things at the drop of a hat and I had yet to partake.

I got up bright and early before 7am, mainly to do the bins which it turns out was 24 hrs early. That's one lie in I won't see again in a hurry. After this abortive attempt I fire up the car and drove through the backstreets to CIBC and a breakfast of Tim Horton's coffee, a couple of small pancakes and two breakfast sausages. All of this for a suggested donation of $1, bargain. They had a little area setup for communal eating but it seemed to be pretty packed and to be honest my early morning good will did not stretch to chatting with strangers so I munched in my car.

This in no way resembles my breakfast :)

And the review, very positive. Everyone was nice and friendly, the breakfast well worth a dollar and I got to see some of the cars all decked out for RockinAugust, which this brekkie was linked to.

And now even though the breakfast was not overly large I shall travel to the gym, I think rowing for a while will resolve any guilt issues.

A lonely fool is a fool alone

I find myself alone as Mrs Jacqui has travelled several thousand miles to get away from me. She did mention something about Carolyn's wedding but I see through such paltry subterfuges.

So I pen this quick note in the hope that she gets to read it before her return, I love her very much and this time she carries my heir along with her in some kind of maternal pouch, so she better be damn careful!

Also, if anyone wants to do stuff then I'm open to offers, although I do reserve the right of refusal if I just don't feel like it:)

Google Redirect Virus ... well kind of

One item worth mentioning is that I have spent a good 8 hours trying to remove what seemed to be a virus from my machine over the weekend and it was not fun. I can safely say that I now have one of the cleanest PC's in the world thanks to Malwarebytes, Spybot, Ms Security, ComboFix, HJT and many others.

I can also say that it was not directly related to my PC, just indirectly. Somehow something had got into my wifi router and modified the DNS settings to something odd, changing them to the free google dns servers 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 resolved the issue. I had even resorted to posting the issue on geekstogo ( a great site where volunteers help you with PC problems) and this is what tipped me off.

Mitch8 helpfully replied to me and one of his questions was 'Do you have a router and do you have any other PCs with the same issue using this router?'

So I checked Jacqui's PC and lo and behold she was getting the same issue. So one trip to the router later and we're all happy.

If this post means nothing to you don't panic, i just needed somewhere to let off steam as much as anything else:)