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After connecting with Xavier, I got in touch with Bruce Halstead at County Durham Brewing Co., who I'd been in touch with about doing a tour of his brewery. Despite the simple fact that he thought we were crazy to be out and about in the heat, he agreed to give us a tour of the facilities. We headed over and spent the next little while chatting with Bruce and taking a look around.

Bruce seems like a cool guy -- and he has what I'd consider a great job. He makes beer for a living. Come on! How can that suck?

In case Bruce ever comes across this entry: Thanks a lot Bruce. We had a good time, and we hope we didn't take you away from kegging beer for too long. Cheers!

After we left the brewery, Xavier wanted to stop by the Beer Store so we could get a six of County Durham Signature Ale. Thankfully, the Pickering Beer Store on Liverpool had it in stock, so we had some frosty beverages to drink in and around Xavier's pool for the rest of the afternoon.

The lounging was cut a little short, as I had to head off to dinner with Jacquie and her parents.

And now I'm just hanging out at home, not sure what to do next. I think I'll go open a nice beer and sit out on the deck.

Wii Jenga? Seriously?

Come to think of it, that could be a lot of fun, but if it's not a budget title, then I wouldn't see the point. I could just get some friends together, get a Jenga set and go to it. Why drop $50 or $60 on a Jenga video game?

I've been leafing through the Angel RPG book and wishing once again I could get a Buffy the Vampire Slayer game off the ground. I know it's not going to happen unless I run it online, but I can still hope, can't I?

While I've been flipping through RPG books recently, I've been wondering what's next for my RPG group. The summer hasn't been kind to us, as our schedules have been full of conflicts. I doubt we'll get back to any roleplaying until after Labour Day, so I'm really just thinking ahead to then. But really, aside from maybe trying to get Capes on the table again, I'm at a loss. I could try to inject some new life into the Star Wars campaign, but I'm not sure that's even doable now.

Whatever the case, I need to start thinking about it if we're going to continue to game together. We'll need a campaign of some sort ready to go by the end of September.

Recent RPG acquisitions include Dungeons & Zombies for All Flesh Must Be Eaten and Angel (mostly because it's now out-of-print and likely won't ever come back into print -- it's also supposed to be the best implementation of Cinematic Unisystem to date).

Last night, after I finished reading the last Harry Potter book, I opened up D&Z and started reading through it. It gave me a bit of an itch for some more traditional medieval fantasy roleplaying, but before Rawl (or somebody else) asks: No, I still have no intention of starting up my D&D 3E campaign again. At this point, I suspect I might not return to D&D/d20 for several years, if ever (although I would probably eventually make some modifications to Red Box/Blue Box D&D and maybe run that just for shits and giggles).

On another note, I've started playing an Ironclaw PbP on RPG.net. The only time I played Ironclaw turned out to be fun, so I'm hoping the PbP will be a nice diversion.

I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was good. Not spectacular, but good. But it was a fitting ending to the series.

After delivering a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to my mother last night and then returning home, I sat down with a glass of St. Peter's English Ale and opened my own copy of the novel. When my eyes started to get heavy around 10:45, I finished up the chapter I was on and went to bed.

I'd managed to get through 134 pages. While I'm tempted to start spouting opinions here, I don't want to be the one who spoils the book for anybody else. :)

Woo hoo! My copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows just arrived. Unfortunately, I have work to do, so I can't start it yet. It's going to be a long afternoon.

The Shadowrun Missions living campaign resumed at Worlds Collide yesterday, and it was a lot of fun. There were five players, two of which had never played the game before and were instantly sold on it. I think one of them even left the store with a copy of the core book, so kudos to GM Jason.

This was the third Missions adventure I've participated in, and while fun, it didn't have the oomph of the other two. It had a neat premise, but the big finale was really weak. Frankly, I wasn't even sure if it was the big boss fight until Jason confirmed the game was over.

It looks like the next Missions adventure won't happen until October, so I have some time to (hopefully) get to know the rules a bit better. I think I'll also whip up stat cards for all of my gear so I can have all that information at my fingertips.

Anyway, before the adventure, I was chatting with Ross, the employee working at the games store that day. Ross is a good guy, and I always try to chat with him a bit when we're both in the store. While talking, I spotted a copy of the Changeling: The Lost freebie demo packs, so I grabbed it and started flipping through it.

I read the rules section in a bit more detail later on, but based on the demo kit, the new White Wolf Storytelling (as opposed to Storyteller) system is a bit simpler and more intuitive. Of course, that could also just simply be the fact that it's the demo kit and not the full set of rules.

Anyway, it looks interesting. If I have the time and players, I might try running it. It looks like it's about a four-hour adventure, so I might even try running it at Worlds Collide. We'll see.

As a beer drinker, The Beer Store's top ten brands list is kind of ... embarrassing. There aren't really any surprises on the list, but come on ... Bud and Bud Light in the top ten? Ugh.

EDIT: Every brand on that list is brewed by Molson or Labatt/Inbev (Keith's is owned by Inbev), except for Lakeport. Feh!

While gaming at Dave's last night, it became quite clear that I'm Euroed out. I was prepared to sit around doing nothing for two hours rather than play Power Grid, which actually is one of my favourite Euro board games.

However, as the game was being set up and it seemed like everyone was interested in playing, I decided to opt out. It's not like Power Grid is a bad game (it isn't), but I'm so sick of the Euro style of game right now that I felt like I'd rather not play anything than play Power Grid last night.

Thankfully, I'm not the only who's Euroed out. Dave M. has also been getting much more antsy about them, as well, so while the others started into Power Grid, Dave and I started into an old Avalon Hill football simulation game called Paydirt -- and it was a lot of fun. Statistics, charts, probability theory, a touch of Rock Paper Scissors and a lot of dice rolling -- that's the kind of gaming that I want to do right now.

Damn. Why don't we have growler type service at pubs in Ontario?

I came oh-so-close to buying Big Brain Academy last night, but then I decided to hold off. I had no cash, and it would be bad to continue loading up my credit card.

Besides, Guitar Hero Encore is out later this month. That should probably be the priority. ;)

Dogs are dumb.

Okay, that's a "well, duh" kind of statement. How about this? Some dogs are dumber than others.

Take, for instance, Emma -- our Dachshund. Granted, she's only about four months old, so maybe she'll outgrow her desire to eat and eat and eat and eat and eat.

Last night, we went out for dinner, and when we got home, I discovered that she had pulled her bag of food off the shelf. I looked around, but I didn't notice any particles of food on the floor. The bag didn't seem to weigh any less than what I remembered.

I wandered upstairs to discover the scoop (with chew marks in it) from the food bag lying on the floor of our bedroom. Okay, she had definitely got into the food. I informed Jacquie of this, and we had a good laugh.

Then we took a good look at Emma. She had grown much fatter since we had left. We touched her belly, and it had expanded and grown somewhat solid (very little give, which is not normal for her tummy).

As far as we can figure, Emma pulled the bag down, ate what food fell out and then stuck her head into the bag to gorge herself on puppy food. She probably only stopped when she couldn't fit anything else into her stomach.

Like I said, dogs are dumb.

Transformers -- what's the verdict?

Meh. It was okay. Nothing special. While it had some neat CG effects, as well as a couple of hot women in the cast, the direction, acting and (especially) the plot were poor. The new look of the Transformers didn't work well with the giant robot brawls in the script, and frankly, Michael Bay should have stuck a littler closer to the traditional designs.

The plot was practically non-existent, and what plot there was had holes large enough to drive a fleet of Optimus Primes through. Also, simple logic and consistency aren't Bay's strengths. Neither is camera work. I swear I'm going to strangle the next director that shakes the camera on purpose during action sequences.

Most people seem to love it or hate it. I don't fall into either camp. I didn't get numb bum watching the flick, but I don't think it was worth shelling out the extra money to see it at AMC, either (and definitely not worth the extra couple of bucks on top of that for the digital experience).

Live and learn. I'd rather watch the cartoon. Any given episode of the cartoon had more plot than Bay's feeble attempt at a re-creation. Still, if you love giant robots smacking the ever-loving shit out of each other (and the city), go for it. Do yourself a favour and go to a cheap(er) show, though.

Two weeks until Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks The '80s! Yay!

There's a difference between being really bad and being so bad it's good. Plan 9 From Outer Space is so bad it's good. Pearl Harbor is really bad.

Am I the only one who sees this?

Transformers tonight. It looks like we'll be going to see it at the AMC's high-end theatre, with all the bells and whistles. I'm just sayin' -- Michael Bay better deliver a movie that kicks major ass. Of course, considering his past efforts, I'm highly skeptical. The only way I could be more skeptical is if Transformers was a Uwe Boll movie.

There's not a lot going on lately. My running continues. I haven't found the perfect twenty-minute route yet, but I'm continuing to look. The last couple of outings, I've ran around the nearby park.

On a completely unrelated note, I finally got around to finishing Cerebus: The Last Day. The beginning was dry -- just scripture reinterpreted (again). Then it got good. Even though it was mostly "old man" jokes, it seemed that Dave Sim had regained his sense of humour. Then it went to shit in the last twenty pages or so. Then it got better for the last two pages. Still, it was probably the single worst -- and stupidest -- ending to a comic book I'd ever read.

But still, what could I expect after three hundred issues? How does one sum all that happened up into one last storyline and bring a close to the character's life?

Now that I've read the whole Cerebus storyline, I'll take some time away from it before going back to the very beginning and doing some rereading.

Getting into a routine for jogging has been somewhat difficult. A couple of weeks ago, I went out every other day shortly after I got out of bed, and then nothing for more than a week. This morning, I forced myself to get up, put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and get outside. Now it's just a matter of getting up and going out every day or every other day (I'm not sure what's optimal yet).

When I went out today, at least I wasn't killing myself, though. Dave M. gave me some tips on running -- the most important of which was that new runners tended to run too fast. I slowed my pace down, and I managed to go twice as far without any of the pain. Nice.

About frickin' time they're working on a national "do not call" registry. Too bad it's still at least several months away from being a reality -- and it's also too bad that businesses you have an existing relationship with will be exempt. I'm so sick of getting calls from Bell and other service providers. But then again, I'm also sick of getting called about subscribing to a newspaper -- but those bastards will be exempt, too.

On another note... Happy Fourth of July to my American friends. :)

Now for a real post (well, kind of)...

The Canada Day long weekend was a lot of fun. I spent most of the weekend in a beer-and-barbecue-induced stupor, but we also took in a showing of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (not recommended) and hit up the Wing Shack in Ajax (my new favourite place).

On an unrelated note: Origins is this week, and I really, really wish I was going. :(

Another nifty link to check out: BookMooch.

Sounds like a neat idea, eh?