Inflatable Hat of Authority

I seem to have run a bit behind on things, here. Let's see...

Thursday a member of our gaming group had a birthday, and I decided to bring him a balloon octopus in honor of the occasion. There was some confusion during the inflating stage, and I ended up with 8 inflated balloons, even though it only takes 4 to make an octopus. It's not as if one can easily untie and deflate a balloon, so I tried to make a second octopus from the surplus balloons, only to have one of the balloons explode during the assembly stage. So instead I took the partially completed octopus and the remaining intact balloon and made a festive hat. I was very pleased by how well received the balloon madness was, and we all agreed that the hat definitely gave the wearer an aura of authority that befit him as GM, and that it should certainly have given him the power to control the balloon octopus.

Friday/Saturday I went to visit [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] and it was nice to just spend some time together, without having to worry about being anywhere for any appointments or anything. Missed the "Winds of Change" prerelease tournament, but that's hardly the end of the world. Besides, I might be able to go to one in Colorado instead. = ) Either way, we had a really nice time, and it was well worth missing the tournament.

Hopefully my list of things to bring to Colorado is complete. I've added a couple of things to it every day or so, as I remember stuff that I didn't think of at first. We leave Wednesday morning, though, so I'm running out of days for that sort of thing. I'm going to try to do as much packing as possible tomorrow (by which I mean Monday afternoon) so it isn't all left for the last minute.

I'm a little bit concerned that we don't have many specific plans for what to do when we get there. I tend to like to plan things out so I don't miss anything due to running out of time, but maybe it will be nice to just go and not worry about where we are each day. I'm still hoping to visit Bryce Canyon in Utah, and the first estimate is that it will be something like 9 hours of driving to get there, so that could really throw off any schedule we put together anyway. I'm not sure it's worth it, unless there's lots of other fun stuff to do along the way. Still, I don't want to go to the same stuff I did a few years ago when I was there. I thought it might be nice to visit another state while we're out there this time.

I wonder if I'll see my friend Tom, who moved out there several years ago. He's terrible about answering emails, and doesn't return calls well either, so I have no confirmation that he even knows we're coming. We'll see, I suppose.

Update! kaiwoklaw managed to get in touch with Tom, so he does at least know that we're coming! Yah!

Sluggy!

According to the Sluggy site, Pete needs money. He's asked for donations to keep Sluggy afloat, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Though I've been less impressed by the strip lately, I've enjoyed many of them in the past, and I feel as if I should contribute something to help keep the strip going. However, I've been unemployed for a long time, and have had to cut back on lots of frivolous stuff.

I wonder if it would be approximately the same amount of help if I purchased some Sluggy merchandise. I have no idea what kind of profit Pete turns on any of the stuff in the store, so I don't know what I'd have to buy to give him his $5 (the basic donation he's asking for, with free stuff coming if you donate $25, $85, or whatever). I still don't have a plush Bun-Bun, for example. I think I could justify finally buying myself a plush Bun-Bun if I really thought it would help save Sluggy. It's probably stupid to consider spending $28 on a stuffed toy instead of just donating $5, but I think that I could rationalize spending money on Sluggy more easily if I was buying something tangible rather than just donating. Not sure about this yet, though.

Update! Tom Ricket (T-Shirt Guy Tom) has replied to my question regarding this subject on the Sluggy forums, and had this to say:

...for the merchandise, although it varies somewhat from item to item, it averages about $5.00 profit to Pete per item sold (obviously, not the buttons :) .. so buying one shirt, or one plush doll, will also get Pete roughly $5.00.