The Fourth Wedding Anniversary Extravaganza

June 28th is a double anniversary for us, as it was both our fourth wedding anniversary and our second full year of working from home solely as freelance writers. Two of the best decisions we've ever made, and I can't imagine living life any other way now. The 28th fell on a Monday this year, so we worked through the weekend and took Monday and Tuesday off, which meant that essentially from late Sunday night to Wednesday morning we're on a mini-vacation. Humorously, nearly everything that possibly could go wrong did go wrong, but it was still a great vacation.

Sunday night we decided to finally pull down the World of Warcraft board game off the shelf and give it a go. We've had the game for two years now, but never actually played it because the instruction manual is the size of a coffee table book and is 30 pages long. It also has over 1,000 pieces, so it never really seemed worth figuring out the rules to play. After reading through the book and setting up the board (took about an hour and a half) we finally took our first dip into a non-digital Azeroth to battle the vile necromancer Kel-Thuzad. Here's Matt, Jacob, and myself trying to figure out if we have the board all ready to go:

And this next one is during the game itself. It's way more complicated than it needs to be (we immediately changed the combat rules as there's really no need to mess with all those tiny tokens instead of just writing down the numbers on a piece of paper), but once we got the hang of it we had a good time. There are a lot of customization options available. Eight different classes, each with a range of powers and abilities that can be bought at each level, and you can earn or buy a huge range of items. Complex, but satisfying, as it feels like you have actual control over how your character progresses.



The car broke down on Saturday afternoon, and it took our normally awesome repair shop nearly two days to figure out the problem. When they finally realized what needed to be replaced, the part they ordered in was immediately defective, so as of this writing the car is still sitting in the shop awaiting a new part. A little thing like lack of transportation wasn't going to derail a good time though, so we changed our plans and went to a bunch of places we could walk to. Here's two anniversary babies getting ready to hoof it:


For anyone wondering, my shirt says "Dorothy Mantooth is a saint!" If you disagree, I'm more than willing to throw down in a round of fisticuffs. A trek to Hastings is required on any given day, and (score one for me) they put out their copies of the Pathfinder GameMastery Guide on their book carts two weeks earlier than they were supposed to. Surprisingly they still sold it to me, so I've got this delicious 320 page not-yet-released hardcover Pathfinder book:

Paizo again provides the best content, taking the idea of the Dungeon Master's Guide and ramping it up a notch. The book is worth it for the random tables alone: Interesting Flotsam Floating in the Ocean, Unique City Traits, NPC Secrets, Ghost Ships and Lost Boats, Shop Names, Random Adventuring Party Name Generator, Plot Twists, Personality Characteristics, Mundane Room Characteristics, Dungeon Entrances, and just about anything else you can think of. Of course its filled with all kinds of other stuff, like dozens of stat blocks and backgrounds for any type of NPC ever needed, dealing with different types of players, and using non-traditional elements like time travel or sci-fi in your campaign.

We walked over to Jaker's for lunch and had the traditional salad bar. We figured adding on the half sandwich wouldn't be over doing it, and we were wrong. There's way too much going on in the Jaker's salad bar to get anything else. Lobster Bisque soup, turkey and Swiss soup, horseradish potato salad, and a dumb number of salad fixings all prevented me from eating my half Reuben.

Next up we were going to check into the hotel we stay at every year for our anniversary and get our standard Jacuzzi room. When we get there we discover their pool and hot tub are out of commission (good thing we didn't get our room in advance like we normally do!). It's the only hotel within walking distance, so we decided to take a cab to a different hotel. We went with the La Quinta, as their pool is open 24 hours and the breakfast is the exact same as at our normal hotel. Before calling the cab we browsed the mall for awhile, where I got my first hair trim in something like a year and a half, and I picked up two Children of Bodom shirts on awesome clearance.

Weird side note: what the hell happened to Hot Topic? I mean I realize it's never been something with a huge pull for elitist underground metal fans (or adults in general I guess), but there was a time when everything there was evil (or at least gothic) and seemed to have a general "Hellraiser" sort of theme. Now they sell Miley Cyrus CDs and Justin Bieber shirts (ahahahah, OK, maybe that's just a different breed of evil). I bought a Pinhead-style full body trench coat there when I was 18, and now I don't see anything besides Nickelodeon cartoon apparel and Twilight gear?!? I guess good for them for raking in the cash by appealing to the lowest common denominator?

Mackenzie River Pizza Co. is right next to the hotel, so that was our dinner destination instead of our original plan of Macaroni Grill. I went with the sourdough crust, soy cheese, soy pepperoni, and spicy buffalo sauce mixed in the tomato sauce. Megan had the "Madison," which has got dollops of Ricotta cheese (why don't more pizza places use this?!?) and bacon. I was jonesing for wings, so we got the Jamaican Jerk flavor, and it was pretty damn good.

After eating I spent a little time working on our next role playing campaign, which is finally going to be the Planescape campaign I've been working on for years, titled "The Spiral Touch." Expect all the weirdness and grandeur that makes Planescape great - amnesiac immortals, shadow witches who will tear apart the universe to understand what will change the nature of a man, heretic clerics who worship opposing gods equally and are hunted by both religions, angels that are far more dangerous than their diabolic counterparts, scheming demon lords who just may turn out to be the best kind of allies, living inventory items with personalities, a pillar of talking skulls willing to share secrets for the right price, reformed evil wizards trying their darndest to stay on the straight and narrow, and trips to the breathtaking vistas of the seven mounting heavens of Celestia and to the worst stinking pits of the Abyss! The word "epic" doesn't do it justice :)

We have a tradition of raiding Albertsons on our anniversary for snacks to eat in hotel beds, and this year was no exception. All the stuff we normally don't get is fair game - this year we went with chicken in a biscuit and easy cheese, raspberry fig newtons, and nutter butters.

Then it was time for knocking back shots and simmering in the hot tub (the sign says not to, but the sign is wrong). There was of course copious questioning of the teachings of the Mormon church while under the influence of alcohol (Can't explain how happy and lucky I feel that my brain came with a built-in bullshit detector - many people weren't so fortunate), and then we decided to do something we always regret. We watched cable television. Morbid curiosity always overtakes us in hotels, and we never learn our lesson. Mindless commercials that actively suck out your intelligence, shows that cater to people with the attention span of hyperactive two year olds, and the scourge that is reality television. Never again! Until next year.

Here I am after we checked out, sipping on ye olde coffee:


It was a jam packed weekend, and it isn't quite over yet. I'm off to get some work done on "Letting Go of Santa Claus" (the book I'm writing about atheism), put together some material for our upcoming campaign, and probably waste a good couple of hours on video games.