On Friday, we didn't end up doing a whole lot. Pretty much hung out and played games for the most part.

We ended up finding out some things that well, put me in not the best of moods. Specifically, remember that intervention a few weekends ago? The one where Scott told Dave that all of his friends had come to them and told them how much of an ass he was being and that they all wanted to dump him?

It turns out that no, the aforementioned friends did NOT ever say such a thing to them. I heard it out of two of the horse's mouths that they hadn't even seen or talked to S&D in a few months. Dave got that verified from the others who were named in this as well. As you can perhaps imagine, he'd like to er, have a little chat with Scott now.

I really don't know what to say here. But this coming weekend may be awkward.

For those who were wondering, I did end up giving Dave last Monday's entry, only I put it into his Palm instead of handwriting so well, he could actually read it and carry it around. He seemed to appreciate it (and now wants to beat up my exes, heh).

On Saturday, we headed off to the mall to do the picture session. Which went remarkably quickly and well, and we looked lovely, but...

When we first signed up, the lady said pictures started at around $25 a pack, since they were having a big grand opening sale. We got the price sheet after we left. The smallest package (for six photos of one shot, mind you) was $80. Which I guess is a big discount from say, their normal starting price of $95.

My mouth is still gaping open. Of course, since I have no written proof of this, I can't very well go up to them and whine that it costs too much after the fact. Okay, so it's a semi-fancy costume joint, but still. I feel ripped off. Plus since the pictures have already been done (and truth be told, I really would well, want more than six for godsake, but that's even more), I don't feel like I can just not get any either.

I won't be there when the pictures are ready next weekend, so Dave gets to deal with this crap instead of me. After my choking fit at the price sheet, he said he'd just go pay whatever for it (presumably he will have money after payday). Which I'm not thrilled with, but good lord, I can't drop $100+ for pictures either right now.

I am not a person who is into expensive quality goods that will last me 20 years. If I can get essentially the same thing for hundreds less, I am baffled as to why I should want to pay more, even if it's "better quality," "a keepsake item" or "will last you a lifetime." Why would I expect most things to last that long? Huh?

In case you didn't infer that from the above paragraph, I also got dragged by the Incredibly Expensive Custom Special Bed Store while we were there. He had neglected to tell me that these beds have special controls on both sides so that you can adjust your hardness/softness quotient to whatever you wanted without having to share with a spouse. Okay, NOW I understand the cost. Anyway, he dragged me in and had me lie down on a bed. Yes, it's soft. However, I could not enjoy it at all because I kept thinking "800 fucking dollars for this." Not to mention that it was one of those places where hardly anyone comes in, so the salespeople are (a) bored, (b) desperately want to help you, and (c) are staring at you from the second you walk in, especially if you look young. That sort of thing makes me ragingly uncomfortable, and I split as fast as I could.

That said, given that my shoulders are incredibly achingly painfully sore today after sleeping at his place for three days, maybe he has a point. Then again, that could have been brought on by my carrying my clothes around via bus and train last night.

That night, we went to Backyard Wrestling. Yes, it's weird. No, we had nothing much better to do. Some of Teri's friends apparently have been practicing moves and will periodically put on a show that you can catcall at. They were obviously faking it, so nobody would really get hurt. However, the hitting each other with cookie sheets should perhaps get cut out of the act, as one guy got cut up across the back of his head. Ouch.

On Sunday, we went back to the infamous vampire game. And oh good lord, it was dull. Dull dull dull dull dull. Predictably, I spent the night wondering why the hell I'd spent the $20.

I had actually been kind of excited about going, as I had created a cool Southern belle psychic character and a funky costume and props for her. But once again, the evening was another night of the usual. People standing around in private little groups out in the cold (for some insane reason, game "play" is almost always done outside in the dead of winter) talking to each other. Going up to any of these occupied groups is an Incredibly Bad Idea, because they will think you're spying and then go after you. Then there was a smaller number of people sitting around inside at tables, chatting about random non-related things. This time, none of the game's "big shots" were there (at least, their characters weren't), so there was even less to do than usual. The guys in charge of coming up with plots didn't do anything, and people were resorting to picking lame fights just to have something to do.

A big thing is "in character" versus "out of character." Quite frankly, I couldn't tell who was in what this night, and people weren't being very specific about what was what. Dave would gripe at me for making an "out of character" laugh (you should NOT laugh in vampire, ever), and I wouldn't even know that "we" were in character in the first place.

I swear to god, the entire thing is that so people can get dressed up in cool outfits and then hang out with their friends.

For all the big stink they make about playing, nothing much has happened most of the times I've gone to this. Here's what I've noticed that I think needs fixing:

(a) The storyteller folks in charge, while mostly nice, don't seem to have much interest in coming up with activities for anyone to do. (They don't at this game, anyway.) So you've gotta make up your own fun. I have to admit that I liked playing D&D better because someone was actually working to create soemthing to do.

(b) If you are a newbie (new player or old player with a new character), you are kind of out of luck when it comes to getting involved. You can't really get involved in anyone else's group most of the time. You can a bit when some of the big shots are involved, or if there are others of your particular clan there, but otherwise you find yourself wandering around, trying to find someone, anyone, who looks available to talk to. It's dull as shit.

About the only way I've seen so far to circumvent these problems is to either:

(a) Go around deliberately picking on people until they decide to attack you and/or kill you off. Which makes your night more interesting, but on the other hand, means you probably won't be playing that character ever again either.

(b) Bring a large number of your friends to the game and set up their characters to be somewhat related to yours so that you'll at least have people to talk to. Much as the night where we all did (b) was insane, that was about the only really entertaining night I've had at this game.

We need to come up with something on our own to do the next time we both go to this. Yeesh.

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