Terminal Transition

I was going to blog something, but I did homework and read Penn & Teller's "How To Play In Traffic" instead.

For some reason, most women are not turned on by comic book talk.

Cracked dial

I love this.

I'll give consideration
to the rumination
of the devestation

Of local game shops.
I was just considering what online purchasing has done to small business owners who actually love the hobby of RPing... especially when you can get it cheaper directly from the press or download it (legally!) to your computer. "It" generally being books. You can't download miniatures yet.

But gaming stores have a beauty and splendor all their own. When you go into one, you know you aren't alone in your joys. You can meet fellows of the same tastes... peers, perhaps. Many even offer gaming right there.

The internet strikes again! I can find a board easily that gets me in contact with local gamers of similar interests. I can filter, seek otherwise shut-in folk, and check nearby locales just in case.

I don't exactly fear the loss, since I haven't really hung out in one in years... possibly more than a decade.

Oh, and I don't think Bush is a bad President. I'll point to Millard Fillmore for that kind of thing.

For the love of all you hold dear!

Make the bad man stop!

Not that a petition is likely to end a career... not this one at any rate, but I'd prefer to see someone honestly want to make a good movie and fail, than fight to create drek and succeed. For those that don't know what I'm talking about, I recommend you look at Howard Taylor's "Schlock Mercenary!" right now. His review of the movie Bloodrayne speaks volumes about why to loathe Uwe Bolles.

In other news, people asked what the heck was up with my last post... and I owe my public an answer to that one.

It was a gaming memory. I freely admit to having role-played most of my life, and I have many a fond memory surrounding the characters I've played.

Ogor Thunk married Meg of Ironspur in my Junior year of High School, just as it started. The year was a high point for me, and it was dramatically punctuated toward the end of the school year with Meg's death at the hands of an old PC that had returned as a... PC. The other members of my party had died, but one of them had made an awful pact and won back his life at the cost of dealing revenge against Ogor for having slain him in the first place (amongst other things he was bound to do).

He gleefully set about trying to make life miserable for Ogor, but the barbarian was one step ahead of everyone and simply retired to this biggest "hive of scum and villainy" he could locate, creating certainty that he would never care about anyone there.

Wiley bugger.

I withdrew every detail out of the story that wasn't imperative, making it fall like lead (although I hadn't considered it at the time) instead of flying about like some sort of cartoony woman in a big dress lifted by high winds.

And the ending wasn't satisfying... but it was a start.

My wife has often said that gaming yields poor texts. Fanboy articles and >shudder< books are sub-par. While I find the books of Michael Stackpole acceptable, I recognize that Nyx Smith probably could've put together better.

My idea is that the stories themselves aren't bad, but that the enthusiasm for the subject matter clouds judgement. Should I rip apart the setting and build it anew, I could yield (as could anyone) a higher grade of fiction than has been previously offered.

And all of this was triggered by laying out my map of the Bloodstone region of the Forgotten realms and telling SuperSon of my exploits (and, yes, I told him I did them... I defeated the White Worm of Bloodstone pass and, with the help of friends, slew the ice dragon in a mountain, the name of which I knew not, and later sought the aid of the monks in the Monastary of the Yellow Rose in a campaign to defend that same mountain from a host of humanoids whose only crime was lacking one of their ears).

Good times.

Tastin' like a raindrop

It was a long time coming. I'd traveled, married. Some of my friends were bound to be jealous of my successes.

But, when I left him dead on that mountain, I thought I'd seen the end of it.

He'd literally tried to stab me in the back after a hard win... I was feeling weak. Another took the blow.

My friends weren't around anymore, so I thought I'd just go home. I could spend time with my wife, raise a family... you know.

Six months passed, and I was on my way. The family business was up and running. My wife was beginning to look in a family way. And I was happy. I don't know when I noticed. I just... was.

Anyway, I came home from work one day, and my wife wasn't downstairs in the kitchen like she is usually. Was. Sorry.

Anyway, this feeling comes over me. I forget what it was... not panic exactly, but like something is wrong.

I found her, of course. She was upstairs, on the floor. It's still a hard memory, so you'll excuse me if I don't go into detail. I called her dad first, I wasn't thinking clearly, but it worked out... as much as it could.

She'd been dead an hour.

The local cops found some evidence on my former friend... he'd left a few calling cards behind, practically signed his name the way the work was done. But there was no way they could get him. We'd traveled the same circles, and he'd be well away before anything could be set up to catch him.

It would take someone else. Someone like me.

But vengeance was no longer my thing.

I'd looked for peace, and death provided it.

Accursed Sims!

Creatures that at every turn need my direction. I must feed them, send them on errands, send them to bed, to the bathroom...

And yet, I continue to play this game of frustration.

One might think me a masochist.