Kids Need a Stable Home

A lot of people talk about some sort of true meaning of Christmas, as though where it comes from has any sort of significant impact on the now. What is the significance of celebrating a day over and over again? How important is ANY holiday? I've found that culturally the holidays are extremely important as the exchange of product among people IS a foundation for an economy. It's amazing how much work that is for people to enjoy their leisure to such an extreme extent, and that work DOES translate into real world product of sorts.

But emotionally? Spiritually? Is there edification to be had for the mortal soul in such gross indulgences? Am I in effect a better perfect for helping the world around me thrive, or is there a principle difference where I am in fact better off for denouncing the excess that would make the community I live in and the country I am citizen of thrive? Is it excess to be the financial drive for someone with a dream, a dream to do nothing more in life than to dedicate the whole of their time to the creation of a fine candle, an item that would at first glance seem no more important to feeding a mouth than a pebble in a garden?

To be fair, Christmas, at one point in time, was a religious holiday, but that it is no longer a religious holiday, it boggles my mind that people get offended so much over the greeting or well wishing that comes with it. Is it somehow wrong that it no longer holds as much religious significance? I don't think so, I have to admit I am strictly in favor of anything that encourages the strong generosity and warmth of heart that a properly celebrated brings to each individual, and that is not tied to religion. I don't really care why the church picked December 25th, I'm told it is because it was a pagan holiday. I don't care why they picked that date, but the 25th is almost always cold, even in Texas, and during the coldest of the year there is no better time for warmth of any kind.

In short, I'm perplexed by the habits I've been trained with, holidays and the like, and why I celebrate them instead of simply working. Do I do the world justice by taking holiday instead of producing? It calls into question greater meanings of purpose, man given, and meaning. I have a lot to think about today, and tomorrow, but Sunday, when Sunday comes my course of action will be chosen, and I will follow that course wholeheartedly without question, because there is a time for questions, and a time for answers, and if you mix the two then there is no happiness.

Kids Need a Stable Home

Democrats in Power

I wasn't rooting for the Republicans, in fact, I didn't feel like voting at all this election because I wasn't really a fan of anyone, but I really should have voted third party.

First thing I hear after the elections is that the Democrat majority wants to raise the minimum wage. Wow, I’ve heard this before and I’m glad that bullet has been dodged until now.

It really ticks me off. If the minimum wage is raised, it decreases the value of my job, and the work I do by about half. HALF. It makes it possible for every teenager in the world to buy a stupid PS3 and it doesn’t do a single thing to improve the life of someone who can’t afford his or her living expenses. Their money is going someplace else, 9 times out of 10 I would bet on that. It really takes dedication to get stuck in a minimum wage job for life since there are so many companies that realize the value of paying workers higher.

What minimum wage does do? Inflation… devaluing the jobs of people who do earn higher than minimum wage, increases the cost of doing business in the US making the country as a whole less competitive in the world market. Pissed about companies moving their operations to India? Well raise the minimum wage and just watch how fast they run their operations over there after you increase their costs, because raising minimum wage will increase the cost for every single thing.

It just pisses me off that anyone thinks that forcing companies to pay people more will fix anything.

Give massive tax breaks to small businesses that pay their employees higher salaries, do anything like this. Pay for it by making massive companies actually pay taxes, but lord, just flat out making people pay more to people who don’t deserve it… that is flat out bad news.

Pictures!

Books

A young man, lost, with no direction and frustrated with an inability to excell anywhere struggles with wise sounding advice against reality and what to do with his life to find meaning. I don't know how it would end.

Muahahahaha

Angry Letters

I really need to vent here because I know that no one involved will read this. It feels semi private. I'm sick and tired of Tara. I'm tired of her attitude. I'm offended by her view of me, I'm really sick of her not fixing the things her cats have destroyed, and then complaining about minor things when every single post on the stair banister is destroyed.

My satalite chair smells like cat urine. There are dart holes in the wall. About a third of the crap food on the counter was hers. I know the fruit cups weren't Mike's and Marcia would have mentioned them when she mentioned the ramen noodle she was saying I could have.

I'm glad I'm getting out of that house with her because it took every strength of my being to preserve my decency and maintain my self control when her explicative boyfriend Adam called and started yelling at him.

Calm was maintained despite the complete gall and absolute backwards mentality of everything he said. I could go on for just an hour about that. But I did it. I bit my tongue, and I hung up, and I deleted his voicemail without incident. I'm still restraining myself from urges to email her with bitter and resentful words, scathing and representing my feelings.

She is a messy room mate. Her cats are destructive and uncontrolled. And she is a drunk and a pothead.

It really feels very good to have some place to let that out. I saw the way she kept her room, while she was complaining about the rest of the house. Trashed, clothes everywhere, books strewn about, not just her room, but the entire area outside her room, which was completely free of anyone else's influence. Marcia said it's because she didn't have enough space.

Well, let me ask it out loud to myself here, if HALF of a 2 story house, an entire floor, mind you, isn't enough room for JUST YOUR BEDROOM stuff, then how much space is it reasonable for you to live inside of?

/rant

Random Day

Random Day

Went by my house in Kingwood last night and did some cleaning up, grabbed some kitchen utensils that I left behind, took some photos of some things. Kevin came along and let me use his digital camera.

Pics

A Lot

There’s a lot that needs to be said, and I have the time to say it, but I never think to do it till after I don’t have the time anymore. Right now I don’t have the time, but I need to start updating every day again.

Link of the day: www.youos.com

So wicked awesome!!!

School

So, it all started today. I had a good time; I got a professor who I really enjoyed for government I. Anyway, it’s off to a good start… 11 am is always a good start to the morning. It was only about 10 minutes short and there is NO parking by that time in the day.

Anywho, I’m looking at bottling for my sauce. I need to begin actual work on it VERY soon. Roasting needs to be done by Friday. I really would like to also be moved out by then too, that would feel good.

Habanero-Rose

Here's the logo for something I'm working on:

Sometimes...

Sometimes…

I feel like a lousy human being.

Going Away

Going Away

Steve, Chris’ brother, is moving away on Saturday. I’m going to help him throw a good going away party on Friday night, so, everyone who reads this start looking forward to those awesome fajitas.

It’s really sad when a friend moves away, but he’s going to be starting his University time and working towards a doctorate. Go Steve!!!

What is it

What is it?

Why, why, why?!

I’m just up in the air today
Like some kind of balloon
Spinning off the fingers
Of a happy little child

Twisting through the air
Spinning about
A possession of the breeze
At the fancy of the wind

Oh, just let me fall

Mint Julep Ribs

Mint Julep Ribs

The Rub:

2 teaspoons iced tea mix (made with sugar, not artificial sweetener)2 teaspoons granulated sugar2 teaspoons dried mint (peppermint or spearmint)2 teaspoons sweet paprika2 teaspoons coarse salt (kosher or sea)

The Glaze:

3 tablespoons mint jelly3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice3 tablespoons butter1/4 cup bourbon2 tablespoons sugar

Sauce:

1/2 cup ketchup1/2 cup chili sauce1/3 cup mint jelly1/4 cup bourbon2 tablespoons cider vinegar2 tablespoons brown sugar, or to taste1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce1 teaspoon liquid smokeSalt and freshly ground black pepper to taste


Mint Julep

Crush fresh mint into tumbler
Add 1.5oz of sugar syrup
Generous 1.5oz of bourbon
Fill tumbler with crushed ice
Mint on top
Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar

Rabies

Rabies

Well, we get closer and closer to George’s wedding. Rehearsals are on Friday evening, will be interesting, I haven’t been to a wedding since my dad married Marry Ellen. That was a really good day, I expect this Saturday will be just as good.

The Producers

The Producers

Just got it in the mail and watched it again the other day. I REALLY love this movie, but I should only see it once every six months or so. Six months between viewings leaves me remembering enough that I laugh till my face hurts still, few jokes spoiled. Twice in a month leaves me enjoying myself a lot, but for the more subtle goodness about the movie.

Actually, I did this on, like, Thursday, and then on Friday I watched Drumline. I really liked it quite a bit. Orlando Jones played a character that I really liked and respected, the story was okay, pretty average stuff, but it’s still helped by the aspects of the story based on a real person.

Today, I watched In Her Shoes. It was so good, it had parts where I laughed, and parts where I cried, and parts where I hated a character one minute and loved and sympathized with her the next. That’s a new favorite of mine.

Last night I saw Scanner Darkly. All I can really say without breaking into a full on rant is that it was everything I’d hoped for deep down in my heart.

On Saturday I spent all day with almost all of my friends helping Justin move, it was one of the coolest days ever, even though more than half of it had 0 A/C. It really helped to go swimming afterwards.

Hehe, well, that’s too much to write about, it all feels so incredibly condensed, like a weekend in extreme brief. Next weekend will be worse/better depending on which angle you’re viewing it from.

NJ Continued

NJ Continued…


Well, after getting to NYC on Saturday we popped out around 32nd and… 7th I believe, maybe 8th. Walked all the way up to Times Square, and then spent most of the day bouncing between there, 44th at 7th and 60th at 5th. Around about 4 in the afternoon we got tickets to see the 8 o’clock show of The Producers, a musical comedy I’d seen for the first time in its film translation last December, and which was definitely surpassed by the live Broadway version.

We also ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp, a very good restaurant both times we were over there, I wish we had one down here in Houston, their Bourbon Mahi Mahi was downright fricken awesome. Mike wasn’t adventurous enough to try any of the tiny interesting places we saw around the place.

There was an impressive wedding going on in one of the cathedrals we saw the inside of on the streets traveling between one place and another. The gothic style was extremely impressive.

Two stores that were totally unimpressive: Nintendo Store and Apple store. The Apple store is open 24/7 365, something difficult to appreciate till you need a Mac on Christmas Eve, which, I didn’t since it was early July on a day when places are supposed to be open anyway. Moreover, the selection was still way too similar to the local Mac store in the Galleria mall.

I was incredibly hyped about the Nintendo store till I got there, some very nice displays where out, but when it came right down to it I couldn’t find a single thing worth buying that I couldn’t get anywhere else, no custom styli, or even games that I couldn’t get anywhere else. They had a very interesting little GameBoy museum, but nothing really special about that, it was locked in a case, I’ve seen pics from it online aready. Ultimately a disappointing experience since every single Toys R Us, WalMart, BestBuy, Fry’s, Gamespot, and Eb Games has the same selection, nothing compared to online shopping.

After the Broadway show we took the train back to Morristown, and Sunday was spent recuperating. Neither Saturday nor Monday had very good dinner because of how everything up there closed so early, same with Sunday night. I’m not saying that the hours are horrible, but you definitely have to be prepared for there being times of day where there is literally no where to go get food from if you haven’t eaten yet, meaning keep your fridge stocked.

The second trip to NYC started later, and we saw the Guggenheim, and the Metropolitan museums. The Metropolitan is incredible, I could spend a month there, days on each exhibit studying everything in it carefully and drawing. The Guggenheim not so much, I just wasn’t really impressed by the only exhibit they had, even if most of the side halls had some very good work in them.

We left shortly after the Museums though, Mike was hesitant to go for a walk in central park, so I missed that and the zoo.

Tuesday was also very cool, spent it looking at Ellis and Liberty Islands. I could have skipped Liberty Island completely, but Ellis is a lifetime memory. I can’t think of a better place in the entire world to spend the fourth of July than where so many people spent their first moments in the country. I can only imagine what it was like to pass through there at the time when it was used so much. It rained on us as we were taking off from Liberty, got a little damp.

After the islands, and the rain, not knowing how soon or if the rain would come again, also having nothing to sit on other than wet grass, we decided not to wait for 4 hours after browsing the island museums to see the fireworks so we went to Mike’s apartment and watched some recorded shows that we hadn’t seen before. Wednesday was spent on breakfast and general relaxation before hitting the airport. It wasn’t possible to visit Jason, he just didn’t get in contact with me in time to make plans, I wasn’t even able to talk to him till Monday night, which was just way too late, I didn’t even go back to NYC after that let alone the state. Maybe next time he’ll call me.

I’ll probably go back up again in the not too distant future depending on the outlook, the total for the whole trip was maybe 500 to 600 dollars tops including the plane flight. Next year I’m going to San Diego, lets see how that goes.

Bourbon Sauce

Bourbon Sauce

½ cup butter
3 cloves chopped garlic
1/3 cup Dijon mustartd
1/3 cup hot sauce
1 tablespoon fresh ground pepper
Brown sugar
½ cup Kentucky bourbon

So I've Failed

So I’ve Failed


I used to write journals every single weekday. I really succeeded for a long time, and then I suddenly quit after I was running two journals at the same time. I feel that this really hurt me, and I need to get back in the habit.

Last weekend started Thursday evening and ended late Wednesday night. It was such an incredibly awesome vacation, I flew up to New Jersey, the furthest I’ve ever traveled on my own before, I felt more grown up than anything has ever made me feel before. That’s sad because I’m 25 and I still feel like a kid all the time. Everything is still so scary and new that it’s insane.

The flight up was uneventful, the plane landed and left on time, everything went smoothly, and it was also incredibly dull. The service was just average; everything was just sort of okay at best. The flight back down, however, was an entirely different story, it left two hours late, leaving me at the airport in uncomfortable conditions for a total of four hours, but everyone was even tempered, and once aboard the plane, the captain gave funny announcements even though it was 30 minutes of being taxied before takeoff, and the crew was much more helpful. I was sold headphones to watch the in flight movie, I wasn’t even given the opportunity on the first flight. It was a really good movie too, called something new.  The food was better, and I even had an extremely good book to read during the flight, which was so awesome to contemplate over while I listened to classical music over the headphones, very soothing music, after the movie was over, never ever fly without headphones. Freakanomics is the name of the book. It’s insanely delectable.

I hereby cease to use the word “insane” any longer within this narrative; it is no longer necessary, even though it will contain two trips to NYC. I arrived around about 12:05 in Jersey, and Mike met me at the baggage claim. It took a while to get home after a freak wrong turn, and we stopped and ate at Whitecastle, probably the most dreadful fast food I’ve ever had in my life. After that, sleep commenced at about 2 or 3 in the A.M., and we woke up around 8:30 or 9:30, and had breakfast at a place Mike has been bragging about, and rightfully so.

Perkin’s is a superb breakfast joint. I’d pick them over IHOP any day, I wish they were 24 hours. Their hash brown pancakes are simply mouthwatering, and all their other food was delicious. We made a habit out of breakfasting there, except for one day that it was too crowded so we went to another place called Vermont’s, or something similar, but which was a far cry from Perkin’s.

After that we barely missed the 10:28 train and ended up having to take the 11:24 to NYC for the day. While we were there, some things immediately disappointed me, like Times Square. I really expected more than just a mass of really big stores. None of them even seemed to have the collection of merchandise of other local stores except the classical section of the Virgin Megastore. The day went on like this, store to store, with lots and LOTS of walking for most of the day, a total of slightly over 200 blocks all together for both days inside of NYC.

I have to break for now, I have a lot of work to do, and I probably wont get finished before I have to leave work as it is. I’ll write more tonight or tomorrow.

Grilled Avocado Dessert

Grilled Avocado Dessert

1. avocados,  just  turning  soft,  not  fully  ripe 1  medium  mango,  cut  into  1/2  cubes  1/2  pound  strawberries,  cut  into  1/2-inch  cubes  1  tablespoon  balsamic  vinegar  1/4  teaspoon  Mexene  chili  powder 1/3  cup  orange  juice 2  tablespoons  lemon  juice 1/4  cup  honey  mixed  with  1/4  cup  olive  oil Preheat  well-oiled  bbq  grill  to  medium  high,  300Ú-400Ú  degrees.  Slice  the  avocados  in  half  lengthwise,  and  carefully  remove  the  seed. Brush  the  exposed  flesh  with  honey-olive  oil  mixture,  cover  with  plastic  wrap  and  set  aside  in  a  cool  place  (do  not  refrigerate). Chop  mangos  and  strawberries  and  mix  with  vinegar,  orange  juice,  and  lemon  juice,  let  rest  at  least  20  minutes  so  ingredients  can  blend. Stir  occasionally. Grill  the  avocados  skin  side  down,  2  to  3  minutes,  until  the  skin  begins  to  lightly  char  and  take  on  grill  marks. Brush  the  flesh  side  of  the  avocados  again  with  the  honey-oil  mixture  and  place  the  halves  flesh  side  down  on  hot  grill,  for  another  2-3  minutes. With  a  spatula  carefully  remove  the  avocados  from  the  grill  and  place  on  a  bed  of  lettuce  on  a  warm  serving  plate,  two  halves  per  person. Fill  seed  cavity  with  the  mango-strawberry  salsa,  generously  dribbling  some honey on  the  top  of  each  half. Serve  with  a  spoon  to  scoop  out  the  avocado  flesh  and  salsa. Serves  4

Im in Want

I’m in Want

I’m in want with the DS Lite. Those bright screens, and the excellent redesign in every single aspect of the system is excellent. I absolutely love it, and the price point is perfect, it’s right where the DS was before they started shelving them. It reminds me of the major improvement between the GBA and the GBA SP. I absolutely loved the SP, though if I had tried to play a GBA before the SP came out I would have been totally turned off because of the experience ruining flaws with the hardware, such as the dim screen.

Hardware wise, let this be a lesson, a remembered note, visibility is KING. I want to play my games in broad daylight while waiting in lines or riding places when friend is driving and listening to music. The brighter screens are what really sell this little piece of ass, even though a lot of people probably care more about the redesign of the rest of the body on the DS. Frankly, I liked the look of the original DS, I mean, seriously, who defines what’s sexy in hardware? I mean, case mods are cool and all, but who is retarded enough to spend 300 on gaming hardware because it looks pretty?

Silliness aside, I had a hunch this system would do great things when I first heard it was going to have a touch screen. My mind instantly exploded with possibilities, and I don’t mean absurdities. I mean basic possibilities with massive potential that have finally begun to be exploited about 6 to 10 months ago. It’s getting better though, there is a full-fledged war-game with hexagon tiles and complexity. What does the DS still need, though? There is room to improve.

Multiplayer. Metroid Prime: Hunters has such a deep robust multiplayer environment that it competes with PC FPS games, coming up short to only the very best. Problem? I can’t take advantage of it with anything but bots. The online matchmaking only lets you do that if you have DS friend. So, add random people, you say. Well, how many random people play more than casually? What are the odds that because of the poor showing in friends rooms that random people will be looking for random people instead of friends, since you can only do one or the other?

It’s better than Mario Kart, but not by much. Both fun, no doubt, but they feel so limited to what their online experiences could be, and this is FAR outside of what experiences you can make and still preserve people’s safety online. Take a look at the best PC games and their multiplayer, the definitive online experience, and the largest user base for ideas to making matchmaking easier. Sure, keep the random game finding feature, but open up the ability for players to go looking for each other, to join game rooms and servers where they can see other players waiting for them, regardless of the skill level. Add the ability to add friends in session instead of just during the few menu moments. Give all players the option to define games and limits, and game types, and not just “Friends” who may or may not ever actually be online.

They will learn, it’s coming. If it doesn’t come from first party games, third party will follow. But it will come, the system has already bloomed.

Sleep is Precious

Sleep is Precious

So it’s sort of a lazy day. I’m actually surprised I feel as good as I do considering last night was the worst sleep I’ve ever had. I mean, the evening started well, George had his birthday, which was very good. He treated us to Outback Steakhouse. I had some wicked good food. Got George a bottle of Goldschlager, a superior beverage if ever there was one to be had; I also picked up a bottle of Drambui for myself. Anyway, I got some really good food, but the real shine was the salad. Outback’s chopped bleu cheese salad is WICKED good, with roasted pecans and some other things in it, it’s sweet, tangy and delicious all at once.

So, about halfway through dinner, I started feeling a headache come on so I went home instead of going to George’s for cookies. On the drive my stomach started hurting and I got quite queasy. I started feeling a little better when I got home, but by the time I went to bed, the headache blossomed into a throbbing mess. It HURT. I got almost no sleep at all the whole night. I was up by 5 am playing Oblivion with the pain throbbing. I eventually took some aspirin and by the time I went to work I was feeling much better.

I don’t know what to do for dinner though. I’m all better now, and when I get home I’m going to watch more 4400. After that, sweet dreams to me. Anywho, I’m out of here for now.

Hastily Jotted Notes

Why do people look for the holy grail? Why do they fight and die over it? What is it about belief and meaning that make history so relevant?

Things I used to think were silly I see now with so much clarity, the significance of the ages is so awesome. Why do people care about these things? It's more elusive a question than asking what these things really are.

What is more important than a secret? The importance of the secret.

What is more important than knowing? Understanding.

Does that make the secret insignificant? No, to look for something for a lifetime and find that you were looking at it all wrong, that what you were looking for may exist but that there is a greater importance that is on the other side brings shivers to my core... how valuable is a focus that drives an inquiring mind to destinations untold? Does it matter what the focus is?

Things Constantly Lost

I'm always forgetting things, and I ought to write this here, so that I may not forget it again for a very long time. Gamespotting was a very good thing. I came weekly, fanatically almost, to read the opinions of every editor, I found it extremely worth my time in that it offered a lot of insight and inspired a lot of internal debate for me, and gave me a lot of link fodder, and even introduced me to the forums at 3d Buzz where I spent several years time on the forums making good friends.

This is the best Gamespotting editorial ever. I loved every minute of it. It was both intriguing, genuine, and at the very same time satirical to its core.

Whenever I remember Gamespotting, I remember that article, and I happened upon it so easily when in the past I've spent hours digging it up because of my current rank, Minus World.

Curious to the meaning, I did a search on it, and it led me to Gamespotting 87, and at the top of the list, the article I remember so very well. I post the link here, so that maybe I wont forget it so very easily in the future. Here's hoping that I remember where I kept it.

A friend in need

A friend in need

My mom is a friend in need. I need to help her move, I need to make it to a minor emergency clinic on the way home. I need to get my car fixed, it’s leaking radiator fluid, not fun. I need my plants to stop dying. Joe needs a job. My sister needs gas money to get places.

It was a pretty good weekend, had a big party at George’s house on Saturday, he paid for a bbq, and I used logs for the first time ever. Real logs. Three of them cooked everything in my entire grill better than a whole bag of charcoal. It was 18 dollars for a massive bag of pecan wood. The food was wicked delicious; George bought thick tender strip steaks for me to grill, corn, and pineapple. It was wicked awesome. I am never going back to charcoal. Then we went swimming. Again, awesome. My toe hurt really badly after, though. Got to my car at about 2 am then went mother’s day shopping with my sister at walmart and got super good gifts for both of my mothers.

It was a really good day, mostly, finished up around 4:30 am, then went home, played around a bit then slept till 2 in the evening. After that got sushi with my mom and fiddled with my toe then ate dinner with my dad and Mary Ellen. Very good day overall. Then went home and went to sleep very early. The large part of the day was spent trying not to mention how I found out that it was in fact my mom who gave my sister, a smoker now, the first cigarette she ever smoked. I was disillusioned and disappointed.

Anyway, I had intended to go to the doctor this morning but I was still so tired from the night before that I slept till 10. I feel really good now though, not tired at all.

Games

Well, another E3 come and gone. It’s a very exciting time of year, with Call of Cthulhu, Oblivion, Dreamfall, Metroid Prime: Hunters, Worms 3d, Brain Age, Tetris DS, and a host of other games already out, with Heroes V, the best one yet, only around the corner and prepped for release on the 23, wow, with Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Gothic 3(three near perfect RPGs in a single year!), Star Fox DS, the Wii, Zelda for the Wii, Red Steel, everything for the Wii in general, all the gaming goodness for the DS that I’ve barely touched on, and even MORE games for the PC… this year was already ranking high as years go, if even a quarter of the things that are due out this year make it, it will be definitively the best year in gaming yet. Heck, if you’re a PC gamer, go ahead and count Condemned: Criminal Origins as an amazing game for this year since it got ported last month. I almost want to cry.

Anyway. Life isn’t all fun and games but I’m really not in the mood to write about things that bother me lately. Just gets depressing to write about. There’s lots on my mind that just sort of pushes me one way or another and I have no idea what I want out of life, not even a vague clue. So many opportunities, I just worry that what’s going to happen is I’m going to miss ALL of them, and end up with nothing for lack of deciding on one good thing. I’m already well on my way to that.

Toes

Toes

The right side of my toe is so bad it sucks, but because it shrinks all the way down to normal except for the infected bit right over the nail I know it’s not a problem with a serious abscess or anything like that, so I’m not stressed about losing the toe or whatever, I just really need the nail to grow out. *le sigh*

Tonight I’m going to go eat sushi with Jake and some other people to celebrate the end of finals, that should be pretty kick ass.

I’d write more but I’ve been really busy and I don’t have the focus to do it right now, so I’ll probably post again later tonight.

Awakenings

Awakenings

Why do people feel more awake when they dream than they do when they’re awake?
Is it because the feeling of being awake is dulled by the sheer quantity of it, and that feeling, so rare to have in a dream, is so pronounced against a backdrop of complete un-wakefulness?
I somehow doubt it’s either one. It seems to me that there is a greater connection between our dreaming and the most awake moments we have ever experienced in our lives… those moments when we are completely aware of everything around as though each and every thing were alive and reaching for our attention. To be in this state of complete wakefulness, it is like a dream, and dreaming like being at our most awake. When we sleep, our brains process all the things that seem to just float by us without even knowing, that if we were to try to think about it, we wouldn’t even remember seeing… like the guy three seats down in a theater eating popcorn, what he was wearing, when he laughed. Our brains see these things, and they’re inside of us, EVERYTHING is inside of us, and it gets stored up like a great big battery for us to fall asleep and let it explode.

I want to walk through life as though I were completely awake in a way that all of my days are spent in awe and wonder at the vast infinite of everything.

How else could we be so unaware of the difference between sleep and awake?

Accomplishments

Accomplishments

The ninja pirate zombie robot head's single red eye comes to life, and looks around. It rolls up to a clockwork spine, and attaches itself to it at the neck. The resultant snakelike thing slithers over to a cheap toaster, and connects it to the bottom of the spine.
It then rolls around in pine tar, and attaches a couple of bones to its left side. It repeats this for the right side, and then attaches a clockwork claw to each arm.
Gears whir and bones grind as the thing picks up the Chest of the Bonerdagon and attaches it to the front of its spine. It then grabs a couple more wads of pine tar, and uses them to attach two spiked femurs to the toaster.
Fully constructed, the skeleton grabs a handful of disembodied brains, and casually munches on them as it sews a ninja outfit out of a couple of clockwork sheets.
Glancing at its new threads, it beeps approvingly. It loads its pockets with frigid ninja stars, teeny-tiny ninja stars, and a star throwing star, before grabbing an icy-hot katana with one hand and a blundarrrbuss with the other.
(image placeholder)

A Story

A Story


“The Importance of Rules” sounds like the title of a wicked thriller novel. I don’t even know what it would be about. I imagine someone whose life is bound by rules and starts to crumble as their capacity to fill every rule breaks down. Like a 1984 type world, less so to a large degree, from the point of view of someone who feels that the world is the way it should be.
I can imagine their faith breaking down, their questions for the need of the rules becoming more driving as their life tears wildly away from the plan. What society has the right to govern so much of what anyone thinks and feels, to hold anyone to a standard of maintenance in life, the irony of trying to hold humans to a more and more perfect standard.

I want to write that story.

Relaxed

Relaxed

It’s a really nice day, don’t know what else to say other than that. It was pretty cool outside when I got out of my room. I’ve been reading V for Vendetta every now and then, and so far it is very awesome, there are parts that aren’t as good as the movie, and there are parts where the graphic novel is better. I’d say it’s one of those fight club things where they just genuinely had a ton of respect when they made it even if they didn’t tote it as a selling point.I bought Heroes of Might and Magic V today online from the Ubisoft store for 64 total after tax, free 2 day shipping. I’ll get it before the game shops down here even think to stock it. I HATE gaming stores down here.

Anywho.. I got the limited edition… comes with Heroes III and IV on the same DVD as the main game, and a soundtrack CD. I love video game soundtracks. I so want the music from the original Myst still, and the Mechwarrior 2 soundtrack is some of the best music ever!

Heroes of Might and Magic V free high quality mini web game

The makers of Heroes V have also made this incredible web based strategy game. It's deep, involving, and it has no turn limit, unlike most other web based games. As if actually making a Heroes of Might and Magic game that really brings back the "one more turn" feel and quality of part I and II, they have gone and done this.

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Pre-Orders are Killing Gaming for Me

Pre-Orders are Killing Gaming for Me

Dreamfall: Longest Journey 2 has been out for the better part of the week now. No EB, Gamestop, or Gamecrazy near me has one for me to buy. No pre-order deal was offered, so I find myself unwilling to trade cash for nothing since I know there's no way the demand is so high that I can't get one for somewhere. Walmart will have it in half a week, but I know that the major game retailers won't ever have it unless it's pre-ordered.What is happening here when the needs of the hardcore gamer are better served by Walmart or Best Buy? It is extremely maddening to be punished for not pre-ordering games for which the demand is not nearly high enough to warrant paying the cash just to know it will be there waiting for me. I would rather buy it online, if they don't have the game I want, when I want it, I will go buy. Here is the part that really stings, the one time in the last several years where there was an actual need to pre-order due to scarcity, the XBOX 360, it wasn't enough to pre-order. No one got them anyway. That is the major flaw in the system, that is what really tears the concept of pre-ordering. It guarantees sales of sub par products prior to review and release, allows companies like Gamestop, EB Games, and Gamecrazy to pocket money with nothing in return at all because of their blackmail practice of not carrying games that are not pre-ordered, and fails to genuinely protect about the sort of actual product shortage that it was initially put in place because of.It is infuriating to be so ill treated by the industry I have invested so much time and money into. It is infuriating not to be able to go and buy the games that I want, games that I have been waiting for. It is infuriating to be left to order my games online when I want them, paying extra to have them shipped to me, and all of this because so many people are so happy to buy games before they come out, more often than not investing in games that are becoming increasingly sub par. Why? Because they get all their sales before the game is released based on the hype of the industry builds, with press refusing to show anything but the good of a game before release.With more and more game sales pressured to be made prior to release and review, accountability falls harder and harder onto previews to give bad impressions to let gamers know what they're getting before both games and gaming press become irrelevant because of a stung consumer base.

Talking

Talking

There’s not a lot of people I feel really comfortable talking to right now, I imagine I desire to crawl inside of a tiny shell where no one can talk to me at all in any way shape or fashion. Almost everyone in my life right now has an issue with me that I dread looking them in the eyes, knowing that it’s on their mind and that it is somehow my fault that it’s there. Joe is homeless, and I haven’t been able to do anything about it, Pattie and I broke up, and now she’s doing things like writing to Christ, telling him he never has to talk to her again. Marcia, Tara, and Mike all have this issue with the lease and house going, and that is a large stress in my life. That’s why I’m posting here. I think I’m going to give up my livejournal. That’s where I went for my room mates, I’ll still go there to look at Pattie’s blog, and to read my friends blogs, but for the most part, I don’t want to share with too many people.

I know Pattie will read this. I like that she reads this blog, I like that she knows my thoughts; she’s one of my best friends in the world. Chris might read this too. It seems that yesterday started out okay and then got very sad very fast. Maybe I was wrong in my decision and what I did. I didn’t premeditate it, it just sort of felt like the right thing to do about the issues that were being talked about. My brain is wrapping around itself full of questions and bothersome troubles.

I think that after Pattie reads this, she’s going to avoid me for the rest of the day, which is sad because this is my way of telling her that no matter what, I still want to spend the day talking to her. Things change though, and eventually she’s going to stop being comfortable with me, and she’ll stop talking to me, like so many people do, and ultimately move on.

Change is scary. Especially quarters.

I haven’t written in a while. It’s funny how I’ve done the least writing in times when the most has happened. Life has changed dramatically in the past week or so and it’s really emotional for me to talk about. Mike left for NJ on Monday morning and was really busy before that so little was seen of him. Won’t see him very much ever again. Maybe 3 times a year, tops.

Watching a cooking show right now where a guy made ice cream by taking the ingredients and his hand cranked ice cream maker to a glacier and hacking ice right out of the landscape. After he made it he said, “This is a rather complicated way of making ice cream, you can use a machine if you don’t have a hand cranked maker, and certainly if you don’t have a glacier handy you can use it right out of the freezer, but I like it better this way.”

That is funny to me… glacier made ice cream.

Sorry, that just seemed so immediate and wanted to write it before I forgot it before I went on with the heavy stuff.

So, I’m confused. I’m also pretty lonely. Sad is an excellent adjective for parts of how I feel, and incomplete as well. I’m really tired of writing all of this, even though it’s still fairly short and not a complete compilation of my feelings.

I want to write every day again. Maybe that will help me feel better.

How Diablo Killed the RPG

How Diablo Killed the RPG


About fifteen years ago adventure games were king. The many variety of quests available from Lucasarts and Sierra, among many others, ruled the day. Their detailed stories, animated characters and environments were rich and involving. Adventure games mixed character, and narrative that has rarely been matched by any other genre, as well as a level of character design and originality that drew in audiences and brought them to satisfying conclusions.

Here, now, the stage is set for the largest commercial success of its time, Myst, a record breaking game. Myst is compelling, it has beautiful dreamy styles that are comforting and are accompanied by ambient music that draws players in. Few games were made with so few resources, and so small a team, and more importantly, were of such a remarkable commercial success.

Forays into the adventure game genre began to mimic Myst, along with its divergences that separated it from traditional games. The slow disappearance of the genre followed shortly after. Without the sub par work of startup companies, and the mimicking work they provided, the popularity seemed to dwindle even more. Ultimately the market appeared, falsely, to be unable to support the genre any longer.

In a final step, even the largest and most successful producers of adventure games simply ceased producing them, canceling one at a time, until no more were being made on any level. A few still get made, one every few years, some even okay, but Myst destroyed the adventure game.

Like adventures, RPG games are loaded with difficulties. Branching endings take time to write and program, branching and significant dialog takes real artistic and literary investment and involvement. Creating open ended, yet functional, systems is consuming work that requires background, experience, or licenses. The more options you give the player, the more difficult to make the game, in its entirety.

However, despite these realities, the genre flourished. Companies like Black Isle lead the way with groundbreaking games that pushed the boundaries. Hundreds of companies followed, cloning the successful products. They failed, like they always do, but they drive the market share. At this point, along comes Diablo, a new approach that involved less effort in every conceivable point in development. While maintaining superficial similarities, Diablo offered simplified mechanics, a linear and branchless story with no decision-making or player freedom, as well as simplified dialog.

After that there is only the matter of drawing lines with a crayon. Steady decrease in RPG releases over the years, large numbers of Diablo clones at first, and then a slow following decline when they don’t sell at all due to poor quality and direct relation to a genre so tied to a single game that comparison is inescapable. When the time comes, almost nothing is left but the rare releases over time, entire years passing without so much as a single entry into the genre.

That, folks, is how Diablo killed the RPG.

The Serendipitous

The Serendipitous

“What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you get here?”
“I found it on accident.”
“You’ll probably die here.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m serendipitous. I suffer from an extreme case of life altering luck.”
“Can you dodge bullets?”
“I believe they dodge me as long as I don’t walk in front of them, but then, maybe they’d still miss if I did.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Don’t believe in luck?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should.”
“How’s it work?”
“I don’t know, I just believe.”
“What do you believe?”
“I believe that someone has a chance to hit every lucky seven they ever throw for in their entire life, just as much as someone has a chance to crap out on the first throw every time they try. I always throw sevens…I throw them hard… I put my life and belief behind it…”
“That’s impossible.””No, just very, very unlikely.”

Spring Break Highlights

It has been an extremely long, good, fun, tragic, emotional, tiring weekend. Really, any adjective that you can think of can somehow be applied to the last four days of my mild life. On Wednesday I planted my hanging tomato garden, 4 types of tomatoes, two types of basil, orange habanero, and my lemon thyme in it. If the basil fails to sprout, the only thing that was not a seedling when I planted it, I’m going to replace it with strawberries. Strawberries and habaneros, that’s a nice combination. The most important thing I did on Thursday and Friday was to see V for Vendetta both days.



“This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.”



That quote from the beginning pretty much sums up the entire movie. It’s not 100% accurate, there are some bits from that monologue that are missing from the film. It’s a wonderful movie. When we saw it Friday night we went and ate at IHOP afterwards and talked for about an hour or two after. I didn’t even get home till 4 in the morning from dropping the last friend off. I did all my sleeping for the whole weekend on Saturday morning.



V is the type of movie that you can see and then really TALK about, and that’s incredibly rare. We discussed issues, and feelings, and the direction of the world, how safe we felt and whether we though V was a good guy or a bad guy. We talked for hours about the smaller aspects, the reasoning behind the events and the subtleties. It was awesome. I want to see the movie again.



Saturday afternoon started with a phone call from my sister, filled with tears telling me that she had to move out of her boyfriend’s house. She quit her job to move in with him and he let her do that while he was thinking of going back to his old girlfriend. Then, he told her to move out by Sunday on Saturday. I could kick his ass.



There was nothing we could do about it on Saturday, but I did make plans to drive up there on Sunday with my dad.



The party we planned for Saturday went off without a hitch, it was awesome, and we played tons of games on the wall with the projector. It was totally sweet. I made the best Margaritas ever. Mike ordered pizza, and everyone was there, hanging out and playing games. Things broke up about midnight so that Mike and I could go to sleep, he had church in the morning and I was leaving my dad’s house for Dallas at eight. I still couldn’t sleep, I just couldn’t shut down my brain; it was scary. I’d never driven so far in my life.



So I got up at 7 and got ready, then I took Joe with me, he’d been hanging out all weekend, and I didn’t have a radio, my dad said he might ride with my sister on the way back, so I figured he could talk to me to keep me awake. We got back right around 8 in the evening, lots of adventures, but it’s really hard to keep it all straight and talk about it, mostly, it was long, and tiring, and I was feeling sick from not sleeping. I dropped Joe off and went home to sleep as soon as I could. I skipped school this morning because I was tired and it was raining. I didn’t feel like walking through the rain to my class. I would have done it any day but after a day like Sunday with 40 hours of no sleep.



I have some images I’ll post later from something my dad found and gave back to me.

Height of Spring Break

It has been an extremely long, good, fun, tragic, emotional, tiring weekend. Really, any adjective that you can think of can somehow be applied to the last four days of my mild life. On Wednesday I planted my hanging tomato garden, 4 types of tomatoes, two types of basil, orange habanero, and my lemon thyme in it. If the basil fails to sprout, the only thing that was not a seedling when I planted it, I’m going to replace it with strawberries. Strawberries and habaneros, that’s a nice combination. The most important thing I did on Thursday and Friday was to see V for Vendetta both days.

“This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.”

That quote from the beginning pretty much sums up the entire movie. It’s not 100% accurate, there are some bits from that monologue that are missing from the film. It’s a wonderful movie. When we saw it Friday night we went and ate at IHOP afterwards and talked for about an hour or two after. I didn’t even get home till 4 in the morning from dropping the last friend off. I did all my sleeping for the whole weekend on Saturday morning.

V is the type of movie that you can see and then really TALK about, and that’s incredibly rare. We discussed issues, and feelings, and the direction of the world, how safe we felt and whether we though V was a good guy or a bad guy. We talked for hours about the smaller aspects, the reasoning behind the events and the subtleties. It was awesome. I want to see the movie again.

Saturday afternoon started with a phone call from my sister, filled with tears telling me that she had to move out of her boyfriend’s house. She quit her job to move in with him and he let her do that while he was thinking of going back to his old girlfriend. Then, he told her to move out by Sunday on Saturday. I could kick his ass.

There was nothing we could do about it on Saturday, but I did make plans to drive up there on Sunday with my dad.

The party we planned for Saturday went off without a hitch, it was awesome, and we played tons of games on the wall with the projector. It was totally sweet. I made the best Margaritas ever. Mike ordered pizza, and everyone was there, hanging out and playing games. Things broke up about midnight so that Mike and I could go to sleep, he had church in the morning and I was leaving my dad’s house for Dallas at eight. I still couldn’t sleep, I just couldn’t shut down my brain; it was scary. I’d never driven so far in my life.

So I got up at 7 and got ready, then I took Joe with me, he’d been hanging out all weekend, and I didn’t have a radio, my dad said he might ride with my sister on the way back, so I figured he could talk to me to keep me awake. We got back right around 8 in the evening, lots of adventures, but it’s really hard to keep it all straight and talk about it, mostly, it was long, and tiring, and I was feeling sick from not sleeping. I dropped Joe off and went home to sleep as soon as I could. I skipped school this morning because I was tired and it was raining. I didn’t feel like walking through the rain to my class. I would have done it any day but after a day like Sunday with 40 hours of no sleep.

I have some images I’ll post later from something my dad found and gave back to me.

Vacation

I don’t really like doing nothing at all, I didn’t do NOTHING, I mean, I did a ton of work in Metal Slug Advance. I’ve completed 4 of the 5 missions with gold complete status, and I’ve gotten really good at kicking the final baddy’s buttocks. I also listened to a few totally new songs and played urban dead, and the real productive thing I did was work on Red Horizon, which is coming out very nicely.

My mom is coming over to do laundry again, they’re starting work on fixing her house soon, so happy days there. I got Thursday and Friday off! Huzzah! Now… I don’t want to go to Oklahoma, I’d really like to stay here and plant plants and roleplay on Thursday, watch V for Vendetta on Friday, work in the yard on Saturday, and roleplay on Sunday evening. I really don’t like the thought of spending all that time driving, waiting for mom to do a job interview, then spending little time with Grandma and Grandpa and then a little time with them in church, then leaving and getting back late on Sunday, missing the game, and having to get up early for school the next day. I just don’t feel like it.

Weekend!

This weekend was super-awesome and full. On Friday I had my test in class, and that went okay, plus something else, I know something else really important happened on Friday, but I can’t remember what it was. Oh, now I do. I had dinner with my mom at that Lebanese restaurant, which was really interesting. They had a belly dancer, this time, and it wasn’t what I expected belly dancing to be. I thought the hand gestures were really interesting and essential to it. Her smile was REALLY creepy. Like a doll, or something, it was just so frozen and big.

Anywho, so, I did manage to get plans together for a decent sized grill on Saturday, and that went really well. The day started kind of late, I played F.E.A.R. until 3 in the afternoon, which was enough time to beat the game. The whole time I had trouble getting a hold of mom, who promised to bring some stuff for the bbq, but then never called back, she eventually did bring something, but, she brought it too late to use because so much other food was done. It’s okay though. Jackson, Justin, Jake, John, Kevin, Russell, Tim, Mike, Cymeron, and my mom showed up. The food came out really, really well, and a GREAT time was had by all, even more than usual. John’s xbox kept Cymeron happy, and my mom watched Firefly on the TV, and everyone else played various games and just chatted all night. There were smoked hamburgers, awesome jalapeno poppers, and divine baked beans as well as lamb ribs (not nearly as good as the last set). I learned a few new things about the quality of smoke because some of the smoke was acrid because of the way I accidentally smothered the fire initially, I’d heard about it before but always thought, since I never experienced it, that I just wasn’t good enough to taste it. Now that I’ve actually made the mistake I know that I just wasn’t making it before. You can tell, it’s a dark stingy taste; it got into some of the onions.

Jackson got some of us playing trade wars and it ended up being very cool. I think it would be very awesome to play online over OpenRPG. All you’d have to do is scan the board in and the pieces and you could use the map screen to play any board game, this one would be very cool to use like that because of how simple it is. Anyhow, the night went late, then I fell asleep after playing online some and cleaning up. The next day started just as late and all I did was beat Metal Slug Advance, eat lunch at IHOP with my mom, and play RPG with John… met the new player and discussed his character and he will be able to play next game session.

And that takes me up to today… I finally asked for some time off, I may get Thursday and Friday off, and that will be cool, I just don’t want to travel out of town.

Random Sadness

I feel really alone in my new house. It’s like… I don’t even know Tara, and Marcia is never there, and Mike is going away soon. That’s not fun.


Rodeo Cook Off in two weeks though! Yay!!

Matador

I kindof want to see the Matador. It looks like a pretty amusing movie. Though, frankly, there’s no movie that I REALLY want to see till V for Vendetta comes out in mid March this year. Same with games. There aren’t any that I want, not till Call of Cthulhu comes out, but that’s starting to look like it will never be on PC. Makes me want to go kick some developers in their shins for putting it on Xbox first. Anyway, it’s a really beautiful day out, nice and sunny, but it’s making me sleepy.

I’m also watching dilbert, which is cool. Zac might hang out tonight.

Red Horrizon

(16) GM: Captain Jennings is a relatively older gentleman, by your reconning, being a man of about 37 he is certainly old to you though he would still consider himself young. And to be the master of his own ship, he certainly is young, though he is prematurely aged from a hard life spent mostly ship side and in deep space. He is lanky as he drifts about, and on solid ground with a decent man's gravity he walks almost as though you might imagine a spider to in slow motion, his body moving about and stepping with that awkward gait which those less acustomed to the forces of a natural planet. His scars are deep and their colour is most disconcerting when focused on due to his very pale complexion from a life lacking true and natural light, always sheltered by screens. A sharp eye would notice that he is in fact particularly strong the way he strides toward his crew member Vincent with no exertion, as most spacers are winded by the most minimal of efforts planetside.

(16) GM: He fixes his sharp gaze on you, young Vincent, finding you at the docking clamp and hatch to the spine of his precious vessel, the Pharaon.

(16) Captain Jennings: It's good that you've arrived fast, we don't have time to wait for the full crew, if I had to, I'd do this job by myself. But it shows spirit that you answered my hail and got here quick even though you're on leave!

** Captain Jennings grabs Vincent by the hand and shakes it with a firm grip, though strong and almost painful, is clearly benevolent and meant in the best way **

(18) Lithkul: Vincent looks back at the captian of the ship, waiting for words to be spoken a sign to be displayed about what is expected or what is wanted out of this meeting. Vincent didn't know why the captain had trailed to the head of the ship, he simply nodded as Captain Jennings spoke to him. Shaking the hand of the captain back firmly not to show reluctance or confusion.

(16) Captain Jennings: Come aboard, Lad!

** Captain Jennings offers a hand toward the interior of the ship gesturing for Vincent to step inside **

(18) Lithkul: Vincent comes about the ship, looking about for a few moments, and goes towards where he usually sleeps upon the ship, thinking it's really for the best to be on the ship rather then his shitty apartment.

** Captain Jennings seals the dock behind, and then closes the hatch to the ship's spine, the unusual access point being ideal for entrance from Ares when not docked with the purpose of unloading or loading cargo **

(16) Captain Jennings: Vincent, after you drop your effects off in the second mate's lodge, you can meet me in the pit.

** Captain Jennings signs down the spine of the ship, which is aligned at such an angle to the station that the minimal gravity propels you to what would be, probably more than anything else, the floor of the ship, in ay bit, the side that you would walk on while planet bound. **

** Vincent Lapkan Vincent went and dropped his bags off at the second mates lodge, making sure to stow away his gear properly, then went to the pit as the captain said to, not having much of a choice in the matter if he was going to stay on the ship **

(16) GM: There is a ladder there leading down into the crew's regular bunks, where you would normally be, and upward into two similar bunks, but each one designed solely for a single occupant, the second's quarter opposite from the captain's similar quarters, through who's open door the effects of a permanent residence are apparent

(16) GM: A shudder moves throug the ship and the intercom crackles with Jennings' voice...

(16) Captain Jennings: etter hurry y(**sss**)ur ass up t(**sss**) te p(**sss**)t, we are, el(**sss**)eve (**sss**)t (**sss**)r n(**sss**)t, (**sss**)n a hurry!

(16) Captain Jennings: G(**sss**)d damn c(**sss**)mm, can't get a s(**sss**)mple message thr(**sss**)ugh clear. Fuck(**sss**)ng sh(**sss**)p needs a wh(**sss**)le (**sss**)verhaul

(16) GM: The last bit fades out before the comm clicks off

(16) GM: The captain's curses coming through clearer than almost any other bit of his speech.

** Vincent Lapkan he looks up to the intercom laughs a bit, then keeps heading up to the pit area, having gotten used to the crappy intercoms in the ship **

(16) GM: The "Pit" as Jennings' deems it is at the other end of the spine from the quarters, passing by the ladder like steps going down into the bowels of the ship next to the lock hatch that you entered in, and the screens as well as the back of the captain's chair are visable from the exit of the crew ladders

(16) GM: There are three chairs evenly spaced in the Pit, the captain's to the far left, an observer's chair in the center, having access to some duplicate functions for extra crew, and the scanner's chair to the far right

** Captain Jennings hears Vincent step in as another shudder rocks the ship and the already very low gravity begins to feel much less powerful, though competing forces start to push in other directions and then gestures for you to take either seat **

(16) Captain Jennings: You wont be much good up here, but it's really the best show and you're the only company on board, besides, I've been a bit tight lipped, there are some things I don't want flying about this station to other more ready ships than ours....

** Vincent Lapkan took his seat, and remained silent feeling the information being told to him was of vague importance, he nodded some guessing to understand the meaning. **

(16) Captain Jennings: Hey! Do you know how to use the comm equipment?

** (20) Vincent Lapkan laughed for a bit as he didn't know how to do what was asked **

Vincent Lapkan: of course I don't know how to do that shit cappy, no one ever taught me

(16) Captain Jennings: Okay, someday you'll probably have to learn how any way but--

(16) GM: The captain interupts himself by reaching in front of you and jamming some buttons down during the last two words and bursting out suddenly:

(16) Captain Jennings: Tower! This is Pharaon, you have our information, we've just undocked and are shipping out, can you give us a heading?

** Vincent Lapkan he watched the two buttons that were being pressed and what else the captain might be doing to figure out the communications **

(16) Tower Control: L(**sss**)ud and clear, y(**sss**)u can head (**sss**)ut (**sss**)n an ;lkj%$# andard (**sss**)ut head(**sss**)ng fr(**sss**)m mart(**sss**)an (**sss**)r(**sss**)t

** Captain Jennings jams the on button again with the same settings **

Vincent Lapkan: you know I swear they were trying to talk to us captain.

(16) Captain Jennings: Copy, please repeat!

** Captain Jennings pulls my hand off the button **

(16) Captain Jennings: I'm certain they were, but heaven only knows what they said....

(16) GM: The monitors and the tiny windows show the docking clamp that you walked through no more than 10 minutes ago spining away from you, explaining the lower gravity

(16) Tower Control: Repeat, Phara(**sss**)n, ;lkj%$# andard (**sss**)utward head(**sss**)ng fr(**sss**)m Mart(**sss**)an p(**sss**)lar r(**sss**)tat(**sss**)(**sss**)n!

(16) Tower Control: Repeat, Phara(**sss**)n, ;lkj%$# andard (**sss**)utward head(**sss**)ng fr(**sss**)m Mart(**sss**)an p(**sss**)lar r(**sss**)tat(**sss**)(**sss**)n!

** Captain Jennings jams the button again **

(16) Captain Jennings: Loud and clear, thank you very much!

** Captain Jennings lets go of the button **

(16) Captain Jennings: Fucking worst comm interference ever... i'll just go this way and hope it's okay with everyone...

(16) Captain Jennings: Buckle up, Vincent.

(16) Tower Control: Have a n(**sss**)ssss(**shhhshh**) fl(**sss**)ght

** Vincent Lapkan Vincent wasn't giving a fuck but he buckled up anyways, looking highly annoyed at the comm intereferance. **

** Captain Jennings hits the dash in front of you **

(16) Captain Jennings: You too fuckers

(16) Captain Jennings: It's sad that the view leaving this hole is never as beautiful as the view coming back. I mean.. normally, in the normal frame of mind...

(16) Captain Jennings: Admitedly, sometimes... as you look out and all you see is just space... the black...

** Vincent Lapkan nodded and seemed complacent being away from the irritating noise of the comm, and was looking out into the blackness of space. **

(16) GM: The corridor lights of the spine and surrounding flourescent lights of the pit shut off leaving little but the reds of the background noise throughout the ship on and the lit console controls shining in the dark, and slowly... the stars come into focus... dim at first an then... they shine bright...

** Vincent Lapkan at first was amazed by how pretty the stars were when he first started space travel, now they seemed to be nothing but an annoyance and cheap light at the best of times. **

(16) Captain Jennings: This'll be a short ride...

(16) Captain Jennings: There's a salvage job, pirates hit some one only a day out, that's insane...

Vincent Lapkan: Let me guess...we're going into the middle of that salvage job, before the pirates have been hit, for shits and grins for them to blast us with high powered weaponry and make a bigger job for someone else...

(16) Captain Jennings: Excuse me?

Vincent Lapkan: Did anyone kill the pirates, did anyone make sure they didn't leave oh say explosives on the ruined ship to blow us to hell...

(16) Captain Jennings: Son, pirates aren't random killers... It's big enough that they hit someone this close to Martian space.. I wouldn't be surprised if it was earthers. They've started setting up their own asteroid colonies. I'm counting that the Maltese will have chased them off. I'd be shocked if the pirates weren't already hit...

(16) Captain Jennings: This your first salvage run?

(16) Captain Jennings: Either way, if they were still around they'd be guaranteed to be killed, not that we'd be worth anything to them. No cargo...I'm counting on them having had too much to cary on their own as it is.. means there will be some left for us... without the messy conscience...

Vincent Lapkan: This isn't my first salvage run, but I'm not stuipid either, if the pirates hit someone that close by, they'd have to be either fucking nuts, fucking confident they could get away with it, or got enough shit to blow someone out of the water

(16) GM: The ship begins to rumble as Jennings pushes the throttle, having set the ship in line for its course

(16) Captain Jennings: Son, your a good bullshitter

(16) Captain Jennings: By good bullshitter, I mean bad at it...

Vincent Lapkan: I learned well from my father

(16) Captain Jennings: I'd hate to have a good liar on my crew.

** Vincent Lapkan grumbled slightly, his temper always got in the way of him being able to pull off a good lie. **

(16) Captain Jennings: Don't take it so harsh.

(16) Captain Jennings: Every man lies.

Vincent Lapkan: Especially when they go planetside...and find some slinky morsels

(16) Captain Jennings: I only hire the ones who have tells. If I can't tell the lies that a man tells to my face when I'm interviewing them, then they're good liars... either they're good at lying so I don't know it or saving it for when they can do it and get away with it.

(16) Captain Jennings: Slinky morsels?

Vincent Lapkan: ...don't tell me ya ain't staring up the women's legs, otherwise I'll be calling you a liar

(16) Captain Jennings: Is that what you call a slinky morsel? I suppose a nice fine one is...

Vincent Lapkan: slinky cause they legs be going up hellvua lot more then mine, and morsel cause I want to get down at the center capp'n

(16) Captain Jennings: I see...

(16) Captain Jennings: You know, son, you don't have to act like a regular sailor.. most of them are pigs.

(16) Captain Jennings: It's not your style.

(16) Captain Jennings: And you're not good at it.

** Vincent Lapkan went quiet for now with a bit of a smirk played out on his face. Leaning back in the chair that he was in just waiting for something to happen. **

(16) Captain Jennings: Filthy earthers hit more honest ships every year..

Vincent Lapkan: Am I really that shitty at bluffing and lying...god damn...

(16) Captain Jennings: 'Leastways.. I'd bet they's earthers. The way I hear it, at least half the pirates are, and to hit this close... makes a man shudder.

(16) Captain Jennings: As I hear it, half the pirates in the belt are earthers, would make sense with the ratio of Earth/Mars stations.

Vincent Lapkan: I don't doubt it to much...lazy bastards they are half the time

(16) Captain Jennings: So your father was a bad liar too?

(16) Captain Jennings: Or just a liar?

** Vincent Lapkan kept leaning back in his chair, looking to be getting anxious to where they were going. **

Vincent Lapkan: Actually my father was a polotician, he could lie with the best of em

Vincent Lapkan: I think that's how he married my mother anyways, but that doesn't matter to much now, they're both coffin stuffers now

(16) Captain Jennings: If you'd said that he was just a liar, I'd have told you that's no news, you kindof can just asume about anyone who talks.

** Captain Jennings appraises Vincent, observing his impatient air **

** Vincent Lapkan shrugged and really didn't give a damn **

(16) Captain Jennings: You might wanna relax some, you can go sleep, study, whatever you like, the gravs from the accel will be down and you can float on back in a few minutes...

(16) Captain Jennings: I'm more than free to chat but if you're not in the mood to do anything at all, it's going to be a boring flight.

Vincent Lapkan: yeah...I'll go study for a while...might as well try to get it over with when I got nothing else to do...

** Captain Jennings knowing his conversation is less than welcome turns to the screens and watches the numbers. **

(16) GM: After about 20 minutes of relative silence, the stars spinning a bit from the ship rotation that Jennings put in to help keep the course straight, the push from the accelleration reduces to almost full weightlessness

(16) Captain Jennings: And that's that!

** Captain Jennings turns just before the accelleration ends completely **

(16) Captain Jennings: You're free to float about!

** Vincent Lapkan was waiting for the gravity to go down so he could go back and study for a while, once it went off he took off the belt that strapped him down and went back to the cabins and started studying his books. **

Games!

Ran my first roleplaying session last night with John, I am very happy with how it went, when I finish editing it, I will be posting it to keep track. *smile* I really love the game world, it’s awesome, it allows me to really have fun with a more down to earth type place that’s grimy and dealing with both not enough and too much government at the same time.

I hope John and the other two players who have not yet joined the game find it to be greatly to their liking.

I still need to get a game of Save Dr Lucky going.

Games

Spent today working on characters for the two people who are going to play in my roleplaying game, they'll be finished soon and the game will be going by sunday. I have a really cool scenario set up and it's looking to be really wicked awesome. Too bad only strangers are playing with me. Oh well. It'll be fun anyway. I'm going to leave work just a tad early so that I can get home in time for the game tonight.

Speech class was really awesome this morning. My teacher, mister something or other, was extremely cool and made a good impression on me, I can't wait for the rest of the semester.

My school books hurt me bad.

Pain.

Well, this weekend was pretty unpleasant… for the most part. I really enjoyed seeing grandma and grandpa. I love them, and grandma cooked some super awesome deliciousness food. I even got Legos on the trip. But it was a 27-hour drive for 5 hours with family, and that’s not a good exchange, especially in a car as small and uncomfortable as my mom’s.

There have been worse things in life. Presently I am very happy though because I have had 2 new people volunteer to join my game.

Had my first class today (Only because I missed the real first one yesterday). It was pretty good, a little scary. I can only be late or absent for 3 classes.

Ideas

Awesome idea for a part in short… reset… urge the player to reset themselves, and find a way to actually make it so that the player themselves feel as though they’ve been reset. Lock them out of a pre-existing area as they reset themselves and then delete the map and have every character treat them as though they’ve never been anywhere else.


Another idea for a game story… a physicist working on a time machine has his son killed in an explosion on the first floor. Due to the limitations of the technology, he can only go backward an hour and his time keeps moving forward, giving him only an hour to try to set things right before it all goes wrong permanently.

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?


Okay, this rocks hard.... I mean, it's just totally cool to have a link now that I can just hit and instantly be blogging about a page that I've just been to without opening word or going to www.blogger.com. Now, if only this could translate to LJ just as easily... there has to be a way to hook my blogs together. Oh well, more people read Lj, wouldnt want to drown them in every webpage I find interesting.

Accomplishment!

Well, today is looking good, at random I found a role-player and introduced them to OpenRPG, soon I’ll have George’s character done and he can solo play a few times with me before I get him into the game with John. That will be tons of fun. The new player is into a different style of play but I bet I can get them into the campaign that I’m setting up for George and John.

Today, I plan on making a special blog for my novel. I’m really looking forward to seeing it up on a webpage broken up into chapters and pages.

Dreams

This weekend was really quite awesome. Especially friday where we had a lan party that included a projector allowing us to play xbox on the entire wall. Even 4 way split screen was like having a 27" all to myself. It was tons of fun, and games were played late into the night, and computers were worked on and games were played.

Today was nice and relaxing. I read more of the count of monte cristo, an awesome book if ever there was one.

Story Seeds

A couple of story ideas:

Ghosts being reflections and imprints of horrible events, someone who survived an event that should have killed them is confronted by their own ghost. I could do some really interesting things with this, what if the person gets isolated, trapped somewhere with the spirit and begins to question their own memories, whether they’re alive or dead because of the malicious ghosts presence.

I am thinking maybe the main character would be a woman who was the victim of a violent rape, who died and was resuscitated.



There are some other story ideas in my head. I also want to write a short story sometime soon, finish the Dreamer.


Another cool one is for a group of roman soldiers guarding a fleeing senator from ancient Rome, fleeing Carthage and traveling south into the heart of Africa, being surrounded and slowly confronted by as well as absorbed within the mystic culture.


That’s all I can really think of off the top of my head, I have to start working on Short now.

Post New Years' Implied blues

This weekend was incredibly awesome. We had an awesome party all day Saturday, and late into the night. About 20 or so people showed up and there was a great time to be had by all. My good friend, brother even, Chris was home from the army for the past two weeks and he had a great time at the party. Monday was the last time I saw him though, when I dropped him off with his family to leave on Tuesday back for South Carolina and Ft Bragg. I don’t know how it’s spelled, so that’s the best spelling I know.

While he was here we went to the mall on Sunday and he bought me a pair of sexy, sexy jeans, which was super duper awesome of him. I saw destroyed pants for the first time, I thought it had been a joke that they were sold. 60$ for a pair of jeans that someone ran a sander over? My god, buy a cheaper pair that is undestroyed and run the sander over it yourself, or do it the old fashioned way and go out back and have fun destroying them yourself running, jumping fences, scraping the knees against stuff.

If I know anyone who ought to be able to destroy a pair of pants it’s my buddy, Chris “The Tree Frog” Brumgard.

We almost saw the Producers again, if Chris’ brother had gone to see it on Monday we would have gone with, but they went to see a boring movie instead so we stayed and played Unreal Tournament 2004. It was the only LANing we did the entire time Chris was here. Next time I will have to have better plans in advance. Well, he did play some System Shock 2 with me, and I had fun with that, but he didn’t like it so much.

I still need to finish System Shock 2 with Jake. I haven’t played that with him in several months.

I so want to see the producers again, I want to read the score and memorize the songs. I was so inspired and just had so much fun during that movie that it was incredible.

Last night I watched Clockwork Orange for the first time while Tara, Marcia, and Kayla hung out. It was a pretty good movie, but I wouldn’t put it anywhere on my list of favorites, I may never watch it again, but it wasn’t bad.