_www.FantasyLibrary.com [Visit Who Is Joseph Teller?] Synthesis & Synchronicity 016

Synthesis & Synchronicity #16

You may have noticed that S&S #15 is going up at the same time as this column. This is because of a whole bunch of circumstances that have been so far out of my control you'd almost think there was a conspiracy going on.

So, in a nutshell:

My Laptop computer suffered the loss of its video screen and had to be shipped to HP for repair in CA. They did a good job quickly under warranty, but I was without computer net access for 6 days.

A repair to the back porches to our building turned into a $15,000 replacement of all 3 decks (ongoing)

The Other Building Owners went away to Austria, for a week, at a crucial decision time regarding the building repairs

Their tenants were also moving out... and they had workmen that had to be let in and then locked up after each day afterwards getting their rental unit ready for the next tenants.

The GM who was going to run a BESM Fantasy game for Wed. had his job eat his life at the last moment and couldn't

Our attempt to network 3 of our computers together by a combination of Ethernet and Wireless has been less than perfect

The SPAM flood to my mailbox has reached epic proportions : 600 Emails a day, 580 of them spam!

Our Cable TV is out (no signal) in the living room - I suspect the porch work is involved.

We are now on week 6 without a laundry room (Killing 2-4 hours a week at the Laundromat)

We had our first 3 days of 90+ F temperatures and high Humidity

Pollen for what I'm allergic to has forced me to medicate... which affects my brain skills.

Kiralee has continued to over schedule her life beyond belief....

A crime wave in the area for the past few weeks (multiple shootings, stabbings, breakins and armed robberies) meant we're involved in Neighborhood meetings with the police, city council members, mayor etc.

I had to take over the Wed. Night GM position for the next month or so with an all new hastily thrown together game.

Kiralee accidentally broke our one floor fan for ventilation.... while one of our airconditioners is unsuable thanks to all her plants in from the porches that are non-existent right now. So of course I needed to go shopping for a new one.

Okay, that's the nutshell of pain, confusion and too much work. I've been housebound for 3/4 of the past week, and running around like crazy on Saturdays trying to do the shopping and errands I normally would have done during the time I was stuck here for workmen, packages, etc., all travel on foot and all over the city of Cambridge.

Now, after a day of sore feet, medicated brain, far too little caffine and far too many heavy loads for my bad back, I'm finally able to sit down for a few hours before cooking dinner to update the website and get writing preparation done for the Wed. Game

The Wed game is a paranormal investigative team, working out of Oxford University, in weird Modern Fantasy/Horror/Humor combination (Ghostbusting in the Robert Rankin Universe crossed with the B13 Universe and a bunch of other stuff and using some CoC materials for source materials and the Buffy RPG Universe for some trappings too).

I threw it together with mechanics from a couple of games, individualized 'stock' spell books for the mages, and a lot of imagination and polish. Its one of the shorter mechanics sets I've made, mostly percentile (except the damage system) with fairly loosely defined characters. Not my usual fare, but the best I could do in a week of preparation time. We call it "The Department of Things That Go Bump In The Night".

I don't know if I'll share it with folks on the website afterwards, the mechanics are not exactly 100% original or that spectacular (not really designed for long campaigns), but if folks find it fun it might become a regular fill-in feature, in which case I'll have to pass it along.

Side Note: I was impressed with the speed and efficiency that HP got my computer problem dealt with. If only Comcast, our cable company, was so fast. 3 day minimum before they could send out a service technician is not exactly what I consider great service.... and they are the third cable company we've had since moving here since they keep eating each other, becoming bigger and bigger companies.

Time is at an end for this stage of my writing, so I'm going to leave this piece now. Wish me helpful luck and fair winds.... Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings.....

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