Logic and Nausea

On Shooting an Elephant

2011-12-20T20:17:00.000-08:00

(With apologies to Mr. Orwell)

In recent years I have been a begrudging participant in a game which I am detesting more and more. A game which is played during a White Christmas, but deserves to be played on Black Friday. It is called White Elephant. Unlike most games, where one is trying to win, in this one the participants try hard not to lose. Losing, is when you end up with a useless and equally crappy gift, which tests the denotation's boundaries of what constitutes a 'gift' in the first place, of which, I am told, is the point of the whole exercise.
It can also serve as an exciting showcase of economic theory when one brings a gift that is not so crappy. In all the games I have been a party to (oddly enough, at parties) these 'tusks of ivory' tend to be ones where alcohol is involved. Alcohol: the Arabic word that Americans are most intimate with and simultaneously the one thing that Muslim Arabs consider anathema. Strange, that a liquid with cleansing properties is itself considered unclean by it's namesake.
Be that as it may, when a bottle of Grey Goose or a boxed set of Crown Royal (complete with covetous, blue, velvet bag with golden drawstring, a necessity for gamers who own a plethora of polyhedral dice), or even a designer set of chocolates laced with the unclean distillery of ethyl, causes hoots and guffaws and the envious thoughts of thievery among the assembled throng. For in this game, if game it can be properly called, one can steal what he otherwise cannot rightfully obtain. Depending on which house the game is played in, it can be stolen, at most, twice or thrice, but I find that three times is the consensus. I have seen people run away, lock themselves in restrooms, throw a fist (not a fit, a fist, although the former does happen as well), break the gift (after all, if I can't have it neither can you), and other fanfare such to shame even Gollum's obsessive hunt for the One Ring of The Dark Lord.
This is especially true with children playing the game, though adults act uncannily like them, but with a child it's more hurtful as they do not understand that in an adult's world such terrible things as theft and envy and the law of diminishing returns are commonplace, acceptable and even humorous. Thomas Paine once wrote, "I cannot believe in a religion that would horrify a child", similarly I must say of White Elephant, 'I cannot play a game that would mortify a child'.
After all, what does this avaricious and roguish game teach to those who participate and to fellow well-wishers observing from without:
1) Theft is not only encouraged, it's fun!
2) If you want something bad enough, it can be yours.
3) What you steal can be, in turn, stolen from you.
4) The more you steal something, the more it becomes yours.
5) Alcohol is Gold. Take it at all costs!
6) Expect nothing. Your gift sucks and so does everyone else's - except that guy who got the ice bucket and Stoli set.

I can't help it. I am the idiot that buys a decent gift to put into the pool and watch Hobbes and Locke go at it with the spirit of Darwin hovering over the aftermath. But what I invariably receive is something like a plastic, rotating, TV remote organizer. This would have been a nice gift... in 1977. Or a floating, magnetic, photo cube which doubles as an earthquake detector. Or a black, plastic cauldron with the words emblazoned red as blood in an unmistakable font, "Captain Morgan". Obviously stolen from a Halloween display at your local Rite-Aid.
Oh boy.
If I could work my will, I would alter the game such that everyone would buy cheap, but decent gifts and everyone would draw lots for which one you received. Seems droll and boring, but at least there would be no ill-will on the part of the giver and the receiver, and everyone would have a good time, and children wouldn't feel cheated.
Brian, are you promulgating some spontaneous, neo-socialist doctrine during Christmas? No. I am promoting Christianity (or at least what Christians profess to believe). After all, if we are celebrating the birth of the Christ-child should you not act to emulate his core practice. Should one find that this interferes with the capitalistic excess which this pachydermal pursuit seems to inculcate, then one would have to call one or the other into question. After all, it was Jesus who said, "One cannot serve two masters".
And all this coming from an athiest...

Well let me cap this final thought in the Buddha's words (just to be as religiously inclusive as I possibly can), "Be true to your beliefs and they will be true to you".

And I believe we should start by shooting this White Elephant.
(And not the White Elephant that presaged the Buddha's birth, either).

Watching a Hero Die

2010-08-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

I happened upon him quite by accident. I was Googling some info on athiest debates and arguments a year ago. Happened upon a bloke called Christopher Hitchens. Come to find out I had seen him before: on his no-holds-barred report on Mother Teresa and his stint on Bullshit! with Penn and Teller on Showtime.

The man has a gift for oratory. Not loud and brash and solipsistic, but intelligent, erudite and well -- solipsistic.

A Marxist who believes America should be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, a person who discovered his Jewish heritage only recently and denounces religion in all its forms. Prone to acerbic wit and vertiginous controversy, this man's honesty alone made him a favorite hero of mine. I won't say 'role-model'. I wouldn't want to make The Hitch cross.

I have his book, "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" on audiobook format and have practically memorized every chapter. I figured out his mannerisms and idiosyncrasies, at least as they bloom on the page. They also have a nasty habit of appearing suddenly in his many locutions on his speech and debate circuits.

He has a habit of losing friends. Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky and Saul Bellow come to mind, but he is good friends with Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie.

He is a devoted follower of Voltaire and Spinoza, while disdaining Nietzsche and Kant.

So we don't always agree on things, as I am more the reverse. It is obvious, however, that Christopher Hitchens has a great love of the English language and this more than any other attribute, I think, is what binds us in a remote sort of way (as I have never met the man).

I am reading "Hitch 22: A Memoir" his latest book, and find it fascinating as well as poignant and thought-provoking. It was during his tour promoting this book that he discovered that he had esophageal cancer.

His latest interview with Anderson Cooper, as well as one with Atlantic Monthly, showed him as his same old self, sans hair. His eyes at times seemed as if he were fighting tears, but this could have been the chemo acting up on him. He is stalwart in his position despite his condition, as all heroes are, and I am sad to see him in this way. I will not despoil his cause by praying for him as I find all prayers to be ultimately futile, and he, obviously, shares my opinion.

But I will hope he gets better soon.

Perhaps that is a kind of prayer. But rather than asking a dictatorial god for permission to heal or regenerate one who did not deserve such a fate (and few humans do), I rather hope that there is a trend in the statistics of his case -- and in his favor.

The Expendables... well... they are.

2010-08-20T22:32:00.001-07:00

I thought I would try my hand at movie reviews. And what movie did I see last week? Ah, you read the title! Yes, The Expendables with Sylvester Stallone and various other badasses, contemporary and of yore.

Let me break it down for you: You will not be ecstatic over the plot. In fact, I've seen this plot before... that is, in every 80's man flick. You will not be pleased with the acting, because all the acting stinks. But, if you like loud weaponry, (and what good ork doesn't?) and car chases, and explosions, with little to no sex -- then this flick is for you.

I personally think they should have named this film, Auto-Shotgun Boom-Boom!, but that sounds like an indie flick, more on that later...

Synopsis and stupid spoiler alert, if there can be such a thing in this movie: A group of mercenaries pal around in a biker garage owned by Tool (jesus!) who is played by Mickey Rourke (the new fat one of The Wrestler fame). He owns a tattoo joint called... Tool's which is conveniently located next door. The leader of this group is Sylvester Stallone whose character's name is Barney something or other - who gives a shit - are we really separating the person from the persona in this parody? And there are the rest of Gilligan's Isle... Cauliflower Ear Man, Auto-Shotgun Dude (the n-word with the t-word), Mr. Christmas (you believe this shit?) played by Jason Statham who is the knife dancer, Judas - er I mean, Dolph Lundgren's character who doesn't do anything but break rules, take drugs, and well Judas everybody. More on this piece of work later... Oh, and Ying Yang (holy Christ!) played by Jet Li, why don't we have Chow Yun Fat play a character called Wei Lo Wang, I mean come on! I'm surprised there wasn't a Chinese terrier called Ping Pong or some stupid shit like that. And can you imagine Jet Li as a BIKER?? Anyway, I digress...

The movie starts with these assorted badasses on a Nigerian pirate vessel rescuing some hostages. Short, terse and tense dialogue ensues with the end result being the chief pirate being blasted very graphically in half by a rifle grenade. And that is only the first taste in a long series of bloody pornographia seconded only by Rambo IV and The Passion of the Christ.

After they wrap up the mission and secure the hostages, Judas, er I mean, Dolph Lundgren's character who does have a name but I forgot it and was too lazy to Google it, starts hanging one of the pirates from the ship with some rope.

"We don't do that" Barney Stallone mumbles incoherently, "That's not how we do things."

"But it's fun!" Judas smiles.

They end up beating the shit outta him and holding him prisoner in their Expendable-mobile or a primer-black, Albatross, two-prop, cargo plane straight out of Fantasy Island. They finally cut his bonds while en route (I'm thinking... this is a dumb move) and handing him back his shiny, Klingon knife.

"Is he okay?" Barney Stallone mumbles while piloting the Millennium Albatross.

"Yeah, he's cool." replies Mister Christmas while taking the co-pilot's yoke.

Then they both down a brewski as they fly away into the full moon. Yeah, drinking and flying... at night!! Now, that's manly!!

Then we see the dictator of some South American island called Vilena which sounds as latino as the Ukraine, shooting soldiers execution style for stealing his drug profits, then this American big-shot suit with Steve Austin in tow shoots the final one and delivers some lines that make him a badass. Big Deal. Seen this shit before. Yawn.

Now everyone has heard of the Big Showdown. The Big Scene. Like when Pacino met De Niro in the movie Heat. Stallone meets Schwartzenegger while Bruce Willis does his best stone-cold killer routine as liaison. Schwartz plays an ex-Expendable called Trench who is being offered the same job as Stallone, by Willis. Willis or Mr. Church (so named because the meeting takes place in a church - is that original?) wants to see who will do the job for the least money. In the middle of the tit-for-tat verbal banter between Stallone and Schwartzenpecker, Willis chimes in with this gem: "So are you guys gonna suck each other's dicks?"

Why, Bruce, are you gonna take pics or just stand there and jerk off?

Class.

But oddly enough, Trench disses the both of them with some lame dialogue and walks off.

"What's up his ass?" Mr. Church inquires.

"I dunno, I guess he wants to be president." Stallone replies.

This was the Great Scene we waited so long for? You're kidding, right? How limp.

Stallone gets the job and he and Mr. Christmas go into Vilena to check it out. They meet a girl (maria?) who acts as their guide and they essentially fuck up and have to get off the island. But not without spraying the quays with engine fuel from their Albatross and igniting it with .50 caliber cannons on the nose of the plane. Now, here's a part that made no sense to me. Why would Statham have to go under the pilot control deck to pop out in the open air to fire the nose mounted cannons? Why not just stay in the cockpit and fire them from the wheel. Like they actually did in practice, you goddamn morons!!! Suppose it was raining, how accurate are you likely to be with your head out in the wet firing these cannons which can only be AIMED by the pilot anyway!!! They are nose cannons you idiots! How much can you aim these bad boyz with your joystick Jason?? This is like finding a steering wheel in the engine car of a train. Where you gonna go?

So, they decide not to do this job as it's just not worth the money. But Stallone starts thinking about Maria and why she did not go with them when they left Vilena. So, he talks to his buddy, Tool, and here is the only acting you're ever going to see in this movie: The camera slowly zooms in on Mickey Rourke's face while he's puffing on a 1778 pipe while inking a tat on something. The lighting is pale blue and we see his reflection on a bar mirror as he monologues about a time when he was in The Expendables in Croatia. This scene is moving and is a damn good piece of acting. Tool expresses in one story why he no longer goes on missions with them anymore and why Stallone should go back and rescue the girl.

So he does.

Of course the whole group isn't going to let him go alone so they all get involved, except Dolph. He got kicked out of the group after his faux pas in Nigeria, plus he's a drug user and can't be trusted. So he sold himself to the enemy in Vilena, got some guns and some posse and took the fight to Stallone's HQ. Jet Li is with Stallone in a truck while Dolph and his cronies try to take them out with SMG's and a car chase. Jet ends up in the bed of the pickup firing his gat at the goons. And here is where the headaches come in. Bring some aspirin or ibuprofen with you to the theater because the action scenes are so quick and strobe-like with a lot of movement such that you can barely make out who is getting hit and who is firing the weapons. It is like this through the whole movie. Maybe a pair of 3-D glasses will compensate for this.

Anyway, they make it inside Tool's garage and Dolph and Jet Li duke it out until Stallone finally shoots Dolph 2 inches above the heart. I know this because Stallone tells Judas this as he's dying. I would rank that as TMI. In his 'death' throes, Dolph comes clean and tells him about the plan in Vilena (which is I guess the dictator wants to make money with coke and sell it to Americans?)

So the whole group ends up in a night flight to Vilena to take out the dictator and his American master and rescue Maria.

Explosions, explosions, explosions. People blown or sliced in half. Oh.... and the Auto-Shotgun. I play Dark Heresy and there are a few auto-shotguns in that game. I always wondered what it would be like to fire one of those things in close quarters. After seeing this movie. I now know. And it's badassssssssssssssssssss!!!

The End.

Seriously, that's how it ends. Oh -- I almost forgot! There was an epilogue of sorts.

The Expendables end up at Tool's garage and guess who's there? Judas. That's right the whole Dolph thing was a joke! Ha ha ha ha ha! He's stopped using drugs and changed his ways. Buddy-buddy all over again! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ridiculous...

I give this movie 2 out of 5 stars. Not one 'good guy' dies... not one. Every 'bad guy' dies... every one. Except Dolph. It was entertaining on the lowest level, and I've seen worse. And there was that auto-shotgun.

Arkham Bullshit or Why Won't This Game Take Off?

2010-08-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

I am an avid fan of H.P. Lovecraft and his mythology. Read them since I was a tyke. When the boardgame Arkham Horror came out I instantly grabbed it so I could relive the stark adventure of investigating the horrors of the Cthulhu mythos.

For those familiar with the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game, it is practically a boardgame version of that same thing.

I love the game but it is a love that (like all loves I suppose) is interspersed with pain and loathing. Whenever I drag this game out, (and it takes about 15 to 30 minutes to set up depending on how you store your myriad game pieces and how many players you have and how many have never played the game before or need a 'refresher course'), it has met with disaster (with one exception). I have lately been trying to pawn it off on the Petersens since we have been playing cooperative games a lot lately. The first time I showed them this wonderful game, I came dressed as a '20's reporter with suspenders and slicked back hair with a sharp, black coat. Unfortunately, my attire turned out to be more interesting than the game I brought. After I discussed the rules and set up the game, I chose Yig to be our Ancient One and started 'er up. I should also note that I had the Dunwich Horror expansion attached to this game for this session. (Big Mistake). Well, I think we had six players at this game which meant we only needed 6 gates to be open on the game board for Yig to awaken. I can't remember exactly what we did, but apparently we did close some gates because I recall that Yig filled up with doom tokens and woke up. Now, it only takes 10 doom counters to wake up Yig (he's the easiest Ancient One to awaken) and the ensuing final battle with him accomplished much but not enough as attrition set in (as it often does with these Ancient Ones) and all of us fell before his supernatural might.

The game lasted maybe two hours in total and no one was pleased, least of all me. In my shame, I put the game back into the closet and waited until the stars were right to bring it out into the light.

Arkham Failure part 2

This weekend I sprang the Auld Gaym Boxe out again quite without warning on my non-plussed victims (The Petersens). This time: No expansions. No Yig (We picked Shub-Niggurath the goat lady). Seven players (meaning only 5 gates wake up Shubby).

With Shub-Niggurath in play, all our monsters were tougher to kill and the Goat Spawn were Endless (I think only one ever came out). I made sure to remember that in a game with more than 4 players TWO monsters emerge from opening gates rather than one. So, I thought this would be a pleasurable game.

I played Sister Mary the Nun and traded a spell to Ol' Withers the Astronomer for a .45 Thompson SMG and proceeded to kick ass at the Unvisited Isle by killing a Byakhee and a Deep One. But I kept losing my blessings (I received two during the game) to the luckless upkeep roll.

John played the Reporter and he lost his retainer but not without gaining $8 first. He took some pictures of a ghost at the Unnameable mansion then sneaked past it.

Poor Old Withers was stuck in the drenching rain with his walker and could barely move. He eventually made it to the shelter of the Black Cave where he was swarmed over by thousands of bats and then fell into a chasm taking damage.

Wendy Adams and 'Skids' O'Toole actually were in the process of closing gates by adventuring in the Other Worlds when Boom! the fifth and final gate opened at the Woods and we were all teleported to Arkham to battle the now awakened Shub-Niggurath, the Goat of a Thousand Young!

Because only four of us had monster trophies at the time of her awakening, everyone was instantly devoured except those four, namely, the Reporter, the Astronomer, the Nun, and Mark Harrigan the Soldier who had spent the whole game leaping headlong into combats with multiple monsters with his Mk I Flamethrower and Remington Rifle.

The battle was pathetic. We needed seven successes to take a single doom token off Shubby and I don't think we ever got a single one off. We flubbed and fumbled and diddled and dinked and finally, we failed our Sneak checks and died one by one.

"Brian." John remarked, "Put this game away and don't bring it again. Ever."

"Ever?" I responded.

"Well, give it another six months..." he added.

The one exception I referred to earlier was a game at midnight at Kubla Con '08 where we had eight players and it lasted two hours but it was actually FUN! And we won! None of them were veterans of the game so I don't know what the hell happened. Why was that one fun and the others were not? Still analyzing...

I am dismayed at the quickness of a game that takes so much space and so long to set up. Five gates is not a long time at all (four rounds minimum) so I guess the tactics have to change from closing and sealing gates to stocking up for the ultimate battle with the Ancient One.

Oh well, we'll try again later this year (maybe Halloween) and see what happens then.

I also do intend to break it out during Pacificon this year. I'll give an aftergame report at that time and see if any progress has been made.

Sex, Dice and Gamer Chicks

2010-07-15T20:33:00.000-07:00

I figure more people will read my blog with a titillating title like that.

I bought a book called, well, that very same thing: Sex, Dice and Gamer Chicks at Game Kastle in San Jose. It was $30 but felt it was worth $20. It's a very funny diatribe on all the gamer stereotypes out there, Gamer Chicks, Rules-Lawyer, Fatbeards, Games Masters, Stealth Gamers, Gothapotamus, etc. My only complaint is, it is a bit wordy and obviously told from the British POV.

I hate 'arse' , it should always be ASS!

I hate 'sod off', only shotguns are sawed-off. Otherwise, FUCK-OFF!

'Given a good drumming' what the hell is that? You mean 'Getting the shit kicked out of you?'

It's not a windscreen, it's a windshield,

It's not a lorry, it's a goddamn truck!

And it's not a tyre, it's a TIRE!

Anyway...

I also got the latest small-box expansion to the Arkham Horror boardgame: The Lurker at the Threshold.

It looks like the most interesting of the small-box expansions. I like the relationship cards and the Dark Pacts. I also like the fact that they added a King James Bible to the Common Items card deck. Now, we mean business!

Words for the Arkham Wise: People on the Boardgame Geek site say to start a novice group with Yig as the Ancient One. I say Poppycock! Start with someone with at least 12 on the doom track. 10 is just too quick, at least it was for my group. Also, kick out all the expansions on the first game, for some idiotic reason I played Dunwich and Kingsport with the base game when introducing it to some neophytes. Bad Karma.

I will say however, that Shadows Over Camelot sure got Audrey and John Petersen riled up to beat that damn game. It's a cooperative game like Arkham Horror, and lately we've been heading in the cooperative direction as far as boardgames. Don't know why. I guess they're fun.

John pulled out his Lord of the Rings coop game by Reiner Knizia and we played that twice because we were so pissed off after losing the first time (plus we corrected a few rules we got wrong the first time) It didn't make a damn bit of difference. We still succumbed to the Dark Lord in his Dark Tower. At least the second go around we got as far as Mordor before we fell. Not Bree.... oops.

Another cool coop game is Cattlecar Spectacular er I mean Battlestar Galactica. It's about as long as Arkham Horror but without 400 types of tokens and card decks. Also there is a lot more interactivity as there can be more than one traitor or Cylon on board. Shadows has 0-1 traitor (thanks Marcus for mastering the art of Traitorhood), Arkham has none because the game is so weighted against the players they don't need one.

The quickest coop game I know is Pandemic. And as is the case with all coop games, just as depressing and rigged for you to fail.

Let's see how these cooperative games fare on the Universal Doom Scale:

1 Arkham Horror

2 Lord of the Rings

3 Shadows Over Camelot

4 Pandemic

5 Battlestar Galactica

Obviously, these Doom Factors change when certain expansions are added to them. LOTR with the Sauron expansion is a bit tougher than Battlestar with the Pegasus expansion. I haven't played Shadows with the Merlin's Company expansion, but I hope to get it soon and will see how that works.

Anyway, just reporting and venting as usual.

See ya round and happy gaming!

I Am Alive Again!

2010-06-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

How can I possibly start after so long an interim of silence?

Well, concerning my '97 Honda Accord: $5,000 later, I got a new engine because the reason the temp gauge could never be fixed was because my head gasket was blown. So, that problem was solved. We'll table this for a later discussion as I'm trying to be somewhat chronological here.

I visited my father in Kentucky on four occasions since the last blog and it wasn't until the last one this past June 2nd to 8th, that I felt really comfortable there. I got to see Churchill Downs, the Patton museum, Fort Knox, Louisville, the Heaven Hill distillery, a weapons museum, all kinds of stuff. Don't care much for their weather, though. As my dad said, "If you don't like the weather here, just wait a few minutes..." I later found out that Mark Twain had said the same about the weather in New England. I love my Dad and my new family there. I miss them more and more as time inexorably moves on. So, that's the good news.... (and, yes, I did wish him a happy Father's Day today).

On August 8th of 2009, my aunt Faye (my Dad's sister in KY) passed on due to pancreatic cancer and the next day my father here in CA, the only one I had known for forty years, Ed Perez, died due to a heart attack in Yuba City. I don't think I have fully recovered from that loss (how can one really do so?) but I feel I have moved on at this point. I had to leave for KY a week after his death and that trip was quite surreal for me. I met a very nice girl there, April, and though it didn't turn into anything, we still talk on occasion. I was very messed up and did things I later regretted. She was kind enough to understand, and that's really all I can ask of her. I started writing a lot of poetry during this period... none of it for public consumption.

In September of that same year, I was rear-ended in my Honda Accordion by some brash idiotic youth barreling out of his high school with his girlfriend. I was at a stop light and he didn't even hit the brakes. I was slammed into at 40 mph. My seat broke. My new engine was leaking fluid all over the asphalt. It was over. Luckily no one was harmed. This was my second accident in a year. I was involved in a five-car accident on the 101 on Memorial Day of 2009. Some cargo van plowed into a car which plowed into another four cars which then tapped me as we were stopped on the highway in close proximity to each other. That wasn't so bad, not even enough for my deductible to kick in. All it did was make me late to the Kubla Con game convention that day. But this one totaled my car. Finally, kill this beast. It had over 220,000 miles on it, and I was due for a new car anyway.

Being as the car was owned free and clear, this meant I would be screwed beyond all measure. My insurance company gave me $2,500 for the car and thanks to some sorely needed help from my Dad, Wayne, in KY and my Mom here in CA, I was able to make the down payment to secure my new, er-- used '06 Honda Civic four-door sedan. I now have to make a car payment, but I have a better car now so I am happy. Just changed the brakes on it yesterday.

Meanwhile, at work, my supervisor gained the Sacramento territory and I instantly jumped at the chance to work there, so as to be closer to my friends and family in Marysville and Yuba City. After I searched for a decent apartment and made the deposit, my employer changed his mind after realizing that there would not be enough work for me there. So I pulled up stakes at the last moment (literally!) and found a place in downtown Tracy, since I now work in Pleasanton rather that Santa Clara/San Jose. This cost me around $300 in back rent which my employer was more than gracious to reimburse me for. I finally moved on May 8th of this year.

Again, I am happy.

I had to fight AT&T for a month!!!! to get internet at this place. And the day I finally got it, Comcast turned off my 'free' cable service. I guess it was residual from the former resident of my place. That's okay, who needs TV anyway....

This week, I will be filing for bankruptcy (Chapter 7), since my new rent is making it impossible for me to keep up on a couple bills. We'll see how that goes.

On the dental front: I had a root canal, a crown, three fillings, the removal of two teeth and another possible crown in August. Not bad for not seeing a dentist in 17 years, eh?

That's a joke. Please see your dentist regularly so you don't have to lose any teeth. Comprende?

I think that's the gist of it. Let's see, I hate Facebook, I don't tweet or twitter or whatever. I do text though it's a pain in the ass. Am I done?

I guess I am for now.

What a Couple of Weeks!

2008-06-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I was toolin' down I-680 to work at 7:30 am trying to make it for the bi-monthly meeting and suddenly my engine light went on. I noticed it and wondered how long it had been on. I searched all my gauges and found that my water temperature gauge was so hot it was off the scale!
The smart thing would have been to immediately pull over and call for a tow. But I panicked and kept going to the nearest exit (5 miles later). I pulled onto Durham Rd. heading for Fry's Electronics and just a block away white steam billowed out from under my hood. I freaked out and pulled over into a ditch near a merge sign on a very busy thoroughfare.
I shut off the engine for 15 minutes and then tried to get back into traffic only to discover that every person on that road was a complete asshole and wouldn't let me in. I eventually forced my way in (water gauge still hot) and finally made it to the parking lot of Fry's where I heard the horrid sound of rattling in my engine just as I turned off the engine.
I got out and inspected the engine. There was a hole in the reservoir where I figured the steam was coming from.
Having no roadside assistance plan, I called 411 for a towing company and contacted U-Save Towing. 20 minutes later RC showed up with his truck. RC is a black guy who had worked for various towing companies over the years. I pulled my car onto his 50 degree incline burning rubber on the front tires trying to keep it from falling back. RC chuckled. "You got it. You ain't going anywhere." he said.
During the ride to the nearest auto shop, RC told me of his experiences in Modesto and the Central Valley vis-a-vis Fremont and the Greater Bay Area. He was convinced that people in the bay area were nicer than those in the central valley. I agreed. We then talked about racism and the economy. Talked about global warming and the changes in the weather. He said, "Here I am, a black man, talking to you, a white guy. Two people who probably would never speak together except for the intervention of fate. I know people in Modesto who are angry with me and speak badly to me simply because I have dark skin. But my question is: Why don't people use whatever anger they have inside them and use it to fight global warming, or fight fat cat corporations, or back a particular candidate, or something that really matters instead of hating minorities for something we never did? It's stupid."
I nodded my agreement. He was very fair with me and charged me a mere 58 dollars for the tow. When Family Garage opened, he left shaking hands and exchanging names. Martin emerged from the garage, a latino man who spoke good English. I told him my radiator blew and I needed a new resevoir. He said he would look at it and would probably be done around 11:00am.
My situation at work was bad. I had several calls open, a couple that were a week old and one that I could not seem to fix. I missed the meeting (I later found out it was nothing but a bad news session), and will now be throwing more money into The Beast that was my '97 Honda Accord.
I ate a good breakfast at Dino's Family Dining (what's with the whole family thing in Fremont, anyway?) and walked and walked... and walked. The temperature steadily rose to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and Martin wasn't done at 11. He was done at 4:30 pm.
He replaced the radiator and charged me 222 dollars. Not bad, except he wanted that in cash. He had no way to process credit or debit cards. I wish he had said this before. So, I wander out into the heat and coax 240 dollars out of an ATM at a 76 station. (It took two transactions since most ATM machines only allow $200 max.)
Martin didn't have a reservoir so he epoxied the cap on and sealed the hole. A temporary fix until the weekend.
So, I go to Game Kastle on Coleman Ave in San Jose and wait for the traffic to subside and the weather to cool down. I left at 7:00pm and made it home in an hour. All that time my water temp gauge was oscillating between just under the half mark to hot. As long as I kept moving, I was fine, but if I stopped or ascended a hill, the temp would rise.
Saturday: I go to Premier Auto and Tire in Manteca and guess what? They don't have a reservoir either. They have to order it from the dealer. So I have them take a look at the damage and they noticed melted plastic wiring which they repaired as well as replaced the headlight they were supposed to fix last weekend.
Again, the water temp gauge is all over the place and it's getting worse.
Monday: I kick ass on calls in an effort to catch up. I have to turn off my engine twice in traffic to keep from overheating.
Tuesday: I take two hours off work to find out if the shop has my reservoir. Nope. However, en route to work an hour later they call to inform me that they do have the part. Oh well, looks like tomorrow. I do an install for BAE Systems, fix one of their copiers, and a couple other calls. I then go to Game Kastle (again to wait for traffic and the heat to subside) and play a cool game of Federation Commander ( a newer and better version of StarFleet Battles). I met three friends who were veterans of the game and they were looking for new players. What luck! I played a Lyran Cheetah Frigate and Destroyer against a Federation New Command Cruiser and a Kzinti New Battlecruiser. My partner had a Lyran War Cruiser and another Cheetah Frigate. We won but it was a hard fought battle. It was 10:00pm and I was still in San Jose! I made it home by 11:00pm and went to bed.
Wednesday: I go back to Premier Auto and Tire. They install the reservoir and thermostat. They let go of my car at 2:30pm so it was too late to get to work. However, the water temp gauge was slower at getting to hot but it was still getting there. Can anyone fix this fucking car?
I got three new calls on top of the three old ones I had. So tomorrow will be another busy bee day. Let's see how much I can accomplish with all this bullshit going on....

Past Becomes Present

2008-04-08T20:33:00.000-07:00

Well, where do I begin?
My biological father who I have never seen (except in one b/w photo) in nearly 40 years called me this past weekend.
After talking with him for about two hours I realized that I have another family living in Kentucky replete with aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, sisters and cousins.
This is strange.
But, this is how I wanted it to happen. I always wondered how it would happen and I have to say that so far it's going well.
The worst case scenario would have been that I died meaning it was too late for him to contact me or he died meaning it was too late for me to contact him. And the whole reason it took so long for me is because I had no idea how the rest of my biological father's family would take it. I didn't want to break the news to them that he had a 'love child' in the sixties. I think his wife would show me the business end of a shotgun.
Luckily, his family (mine as well) took it maturely and we are having continual correspondence. I feel like a missing jigsaw puzzle piece finally has been found and it fits!
There is a strange completion here.
I intend to visit them at the soonest opportunity. I'll relate my experience as soon as that happens.

Au revoir!

Top Ten List

2008-03-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

10 Things I have learned since January:

10) My teeth are rotting out of my skull.

9) The best iPod earbuds are the ones with the rubber domes on them (they have to be large size and you have to press them into your ears until it hits the stirrup).

8) I love my job.

7) I hate my commute.

6) I'm getting back into video games and am thinking of buying a new PC desktop.

5) I will no longer build computers for ANYONE. including family. (The liabilities are too great).

4) No wife and no kids make Brian a happy boy.

3) 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons looks promising, but I will not torture my players until 2010.
2) I can't wait to see Heath Ledger's final film: Brokeback Batman.

1) Do NOT. NOT EVER. IF YOU VALUE CASH or CREDIT. GO to Tracy Honda! They will make up shit to fix and skin you alive. I am not making this up, and I am not the only one in Tracy who knows this. CAVEAT EMPTOR.

Returning Home

2008-01-18T14:33:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been a pleasant experience here at Huntington Beach. Hold on...

A woman just came down here in the Woodfin Lobby talking to her scrapbook coterie and she REEEEEEKS of body odor and whatever fucked up perfume she picked up at Big Lots. Holy Jeezus Christ!

I am now struggling with olfactory demons to type out this post. Excuse me.

After a week of NO ROOMMATE (yay!) and decent, complimentary hotel food which has added some poundage to my already hefty frame, I have scored a 100% on the final exam!

The genius next to me (who happened to be my partner in lab) got all pissed off when he got his test back and scored a mere 92%. He fumed about it for quite a while. This guy was totally non-emotional the whole week until this happened. Now, the storm was in.
I learned a lot and I am glad I came. It was part vacation, part work. Can't really complain.
I just hope that my flight home is less eventful as my trip here.

Tomorrow, I get to run my D&D game in Yuba City with the Boyz. And a three-day weekend to boot.

Good Times.

I'm at Huntington Beach! aka Brian fumbles and bumbles his way through life...again.

2008-01-13T18:21:00.000-08:00

Let me preface this by saying that I have only traveled twice (now thrice) since 9/11, but I have never gone through the horseshit that I had to go through to get a puddle-jumper to John Wayne airport.
First of all, all of your liquids and toiletries have to be in plastic ziploc bags. I didn't have to do this before! So now I have to yank all my crap out of my bag and re-organize it. All this -- in line! I threw away my hair spray can (which was nearly full) because they would'nt let it onboard without checking it in, as well as my normal size tube of Crest toothpaste, forcing me to buy another tube from the concierge at my hotel. In doing all this, I misplaced my hardbound book "The Pope and The Heretic" about the inquisition of Giordano Bruno. I would love to see the look on the person who found that book just lying around....
Then I had to pull my laptop out of its bag, remove my shoes, all metal on me, my coat, my iPod, everything, and put them into these grey, plastic barfbuckets. Then they get destroyed through the x-ray machine and you get them back. Now you're taking another 15 minutes getting all your shit back together and hope you didn't forget something. In fact, while I was waiting for my flight, I heard the intercom rattle off four times about someone missing a belt, a watch, a key ring, and a cell phone.
The flight to the OC (God, I hate that term, let's call it what it is... Orange Fucking County) did not involve my passing out (like the trip to Seattle did) or getting sick (like the trip to Kansas City did) but upon debarkation I was stone deaf for about 30 minutes. I am of the opinion that it is the pressurization of the cabin that affects me more than the motion of the airplane. However, I did get a window seat and the view was fantastic.
It was a fabulous day when I arrived at John Wayne. It was like summer! Here I was in my coat and I had to instantly remove it. I swear you would not know it was January here. Right now I have my patio door open and can hear the fountain playing outside near the pool. Weird.
I am to share my apartment (hotel room doesn't quite do it justice) with another employee, but he has not arrived yet. But I have one more faux pas to add before I close...
The concierge told me that Happy Hour was from 5pm to 7pm at the bar. So at 5:15 pm I saunter over to the bar and notice a congress of people watching the big screen TV Chargers game (it was already over, they were highlights on Fox). I noticed there were cheese and crackers and a vat of pasta nearby. So, I get a plate and dig in. As I sit down to eat, I notice that no one is being overly talkative or social. Well, that's normal where strangers meet. I kept looking for the complimentary beer. Where is the beer? These guys had Heinikens and Guinesses. Where are they? I finally found four Heineken cans in a sad looking tray with a smattering of melted ice within. Just as I reach for one, one of the guys call out to me (This just proves the old adage that you can touch another man's food, but NOT another man's beer). "Hey! Those are our beers!" What? I then retorted apologetically, "I surmise that I also ate your food." "Yeah." he replied. After I turned red and apologized for five straight minutes, I ungracefully left the scene. They were cool about it, though. I did tell them before I left that the concierge informed me that Happy Hour was from 5 to 7pm. "Yes," they added, "but only on weekdays." You see, today is Sunday. A small point that the concierge omitted to my chagrin.
So, I sheepishly left and decided to write about it on this blog. I'll let you know how my week at Huntington Beach goes as it progresses.

Day of Disaster (relatively speaking)

2007-12-04T21:47:00.000-08:00

Well, today was my first day solo at KM. Here is the list of BS that transpired in chronological order:
1) Got up 1 hour late
2) Commute is vastly different from 6 am to 7am.
3) First rain of the year = dumb California drivers
4) Go immediately to first client, sit around for an hour waiting for people to call me to give me a contact. I finally wise up and fish around for it on my laptop. Bingo!
5) Meet person at site who asks if I am new. I answer yes. Her reply: "You took my job!"
6) Supervisor calls and gives me a service call that is Make or Break for the account.
7) Break my laptop reaching for my phone.
8) Cannot navigate said phone.
9) Get lost en route to second client.
10) Call second client and midway through my voicemail I realize I do not know my own phone number. I hang up.
11) I call back after I figure out my number. Mailbox is full.
12) I show up at second client to repair a copier? NO! Install a fax machine.
13) First contact wants me to install an ADDITIONAL fax. I create two phone lines.
14) Higher ranking contact stops me and tells me it's a replacement fax.
15) I set it up and leave.
16) I get lost again to Call #3. End up at right client but wrong facility (they have several scattered throughout San Jose).
17) Time to install another fax machine, this time with torn out controller board, network board and Ethernet port.
18) No one answers their phones and every building I'm in is shielded.
19) Successfully install fax machine. Correctly connect it to their network.
20) Have lunch at Sizzler. Take power nap.
21) Fetch more parts from second client. Get asked questions I cannot answer.
22) Go back to the branch office where supervisor fixes my laptop and orders parts for me.

The End.

I think tomorrow they're having me ride with someone. That is good.
They said I did a good job out there, but I still have much to learn. We'll see how it goes.
Oh, I forgot #23...

23) Come home and get a letter in the mail from the County of Stanislaus. I didn't get the IT Tech position for the Sherriff's Dept. They were looking for 85% on their Quality Interview and I only scored an 84.8%.

Just When You Thought I Was Dead...

2007-11-30T22:51:00.000-08:00

Where do I begin?

How can I sum up everything that has happened to me since February?

I'll just hit the highlights.

I quit my job with PIS which became PDS. I quit on July 30th. I then blew some cash in Monterrey (seafood, live music, Guinesses, women -- I mean, woman). Immediately started looking for a job thereafter.
Just before I quit, I signed up for some classes at WGU (Western Governors University), an online college, for my B.A. in Education and Social Science. That shit failed right out the gate. This is what I get for listening to Dennis Hopper talk about 'the American dream' on those finanical commercials. I could almost hear his trademark 'Ha ha haaaa ha!" as I failed.
How did I fail you ask?
Here is their 3-unit course for 'Speech 101': Write a report on any topic. Attach an annotated bibliography. Do some primary research (i.e. interview some big wig on the topic). Then after you finish the report, film yourself talking for ten minutes on the subject with an audience asking two questions. Oh, and make sure all that doesn't take up more than 10 MB of space.
And what did I pick for my illustrious topic? In my brownnosing effort to impress the teachers, I chose a comparative essay on modern America vis-a-vis ancient Rome. I was halfway through this report before my mentor informed me that the teachers were not grading on topic but on understanding of how to write a report.
Gee... thanks for the heads up.
This was a fiasco from the get go. So I have now quit (effective this past week) after having done absolutely NOTHING toward my degree in the interim due to my job search and fighting depression.
Now I am getting the bill for all the money I borrowed from the government to go to this two-bit institution.
I don't know who I was kidding thinking I could go to school at this point in my life. My schooling is done. Jeezus, I'm 39.
Now for better news: I have recently found employment with Konica Minolta as a copier repair tech (actually the title is Customer Imaging Specialist). I do have to commute to San Jose from Tracy (a 90 to 120 minute commute), but the group I work with are so cool (not to mention the company itself) that I feel it is more than worth it. It's all Rite-Aid was but without the on-call bullshit. I scored. Finally, a job that fits me.
As an aside, I must digress. Once again, I was working a stint at Hobbytown USA in Tracy prior to finding my career. This is the second time this has happened and I think John and Audrey are going to start a headhunting business if this keeps up. What can I say? Hobbytown USA is a lucky place for me. (Though John hit close to the mark when he said that he thought it was due to my fervent desire to escape working there for minimum wage).
All I know is if I didn't get a job that WEEK, I was packing up for Yuba City. It came that close.

I am playing SimCity Societies now. I nice game for people tired of shooting idiots online. And not as detailed as Sim City 4. I am creating a city right now that is a combo Capitalistic society and Knowledge (with a dash of Authority and Spirituality for good measure). It's pretty cool.
Most games these days are asking for dual-core processors and Windows Vista to run. Guess I'm gonna hafta fork out another WAD O' MONEY for an upgraded system.

I'll try to post some Christmas photos next post.

Until again,
Merry Christmas!

2007-02-25T12:51:00.000-08:00

DunDraCon XXXI!

This is one of the wonderful things I saw at the last gaming convention I went to: DunDraCon 31 in San Ramon, CA. A dude called 'Scott' made this game board/map for A Game of Thrones boardgame. He had plastic horsemen with domino bases that worked very well. All the pieces were huge and easily handled by the players. It looked like it would have been a blast to play. I watched it for about an hour then went on to other things...

The topmost picture is of one of the legends of 1st edition Dungeons and Dragons, Erol Otis! His artistry graced almost every adventure module in 1st ed. D&D and some of his best remembered pictures were in the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio. I didn't have a chance to talk to him, this one guy that was up there was hogging his time, but it was nice to finally, after a couple decades, put a face to the name!

The convention lasted from the 16th of February to the 19th. I was only there for a couple days, the 17th and 18th. On Saturday, I played a great game of Power Grid (first time I played it, and though I keep hearing how this game sucks I couldn't help but have fun playing it). I jumped immediately from coal power plants to nuclear which raised a few eyebrows. I also tried to corner the market on coal which worked until Phase II. Needless to say, I lost, but I had a lot of fun, as usual.

I then played some Risk: Star Wars which totally sucked. Avoid this game at all costs. I guess it didn't help that with one exception I was playing with retards, but even sans retardation, just keep this game on the store shelf. A game cannot exist on theme alone.

I jumped in on a game of Arkham Horror (one of my faves!) and played Monterey Jack, the Indiana Jones wannabe.

Here is the game layout during a critical phase in the game. You will notice that my cardboard pawn is in 'Lost in Space and Time' with the Scientist. Wunderbar! For those who aren't in the know, Arkham Horror is a Lovecraftian boardgame that hangs very close to a role-playing game in that it is cooperative. i.e. all the players are trying to beat the game rather than each other, which I love. I am really starting to appreciate cooperative games more and more. Games like Doom: The Boardgame, Arkham Horror, Shadows Over Camelot (which I experienced later that Sunday and finally bought). I just think they rock. I am a social gamer as I have said before, and there is no more of a party atmosphere than a crowd of good-natured people having a go at one of the Ancient Ones in 1927 with a bottle of whiskey and a Remington rifle. :-)

After that I hosted a five-player game of Caylus which would have been more fun had not one of the players (Tim, I believe) acted like a total ass for the latter half of the game. He lapsed in and out of interest in the game. Maybe he was off his medication or something -- who knows?

The next day I came in to see if my friend Jonathan was going to play some Dreamblade with me, but I later learned, he had already left almost as I was coming in. I played another game of Caylus with this guy named Sam (I think he was Russian due to his accent) and Steve (who was really cool). It was a very long game. Too long. Sam had us whupped and he was taking forever to figure out his strategy and squeeze an extra few prestige points. Overkill...

Oh, I almost forgot, we also played a game of El Grande which I totally lagged at.

Then me and Steve played a game of Shadows Over Camelot with a full house of 7 players. Though this was my first time playing it, this game was total blast. I played Sir Kay and sat back, gathered white cards and finally tried to deal with the Black Knight and then the Saxons. We nearly lost the Grail Quest and after a couple false accusations, the traitor was discovered to be Sir Palomides the Saracen Knight. By the time that game ended it was already past 11:00pm. I wanted so much to stay and play Drunken Pirate Bar Fight, but I had to work the next day (I didn't get President's Day off), so that sucked.

I drove home and wondered when I would get off my lazy ass and finally blog this stuff.

Just so ya know...

Beer Pong in Progress...

2007-01-03T20:09:00.000-08:00

Woooo Hoooo! What a New Year Bash!

2007-01-03T19:50:00.000-08:00

What a brouhaha!

Surrounded by Magyarok (Hungarians), Brian loses his mind, his clothes and his dinner. In that order....

Hip Hip! There is no better way to inaugurate a new year than to go apeshit! Lemme explain...

Chapter One: Brian is shy and so resorts to alcohol to eliminate his inhibitions: i.e. 5 Cosmopolitans, 2 Kamikazes, assorted German lagers.

Chapter Two: Brian makes matters worse by playing 'Beer-Pong' with some buddies. I lost the game and downed a few brewskis.

Chapter Three: Brian tries to reinforce his superego by engaging in a serious, spiritual conversation with two people whose names he has forgotten.

Chapter Four: Brian completes this ritual by removing his wool coat and plunging into 20 degree water after midnight. Many witnesses beheld this. It took two days for my shoes and the contents of my wallet to dry. My watch has proven - not very water resistant.

Chapter Five: He passes out and awakens at 9 am the next morning only to sleep off and on with a terrible hangover and only after a Great Vomit the like of which has not occured since the King Ralph incident in Sacramento six years ago, does he finally feel good enough to drive home.

Epilogue: Why?

The Michael Richards Incident

2006-12-06T20:28:00.000-08:00

I could talk about rascism and its effects and causes in our modern American society...
I could talk about Richards' lack of stand-up acumen and the loss of discipline that comes with it...
I could talk about his apology on Letterman and whether it was sincere or not...
But I learned a different lesson during this media brouhaha:

America is worse than George Orwell could dare envision. In his novel 1984, Orwell warned us of a fascist British regime (IngSoc) that, through video and radio technology and the manipulation of language, could watch and judge every move, every action, every thought that a person had, and hence brainwashing their populace in fear. It was the perfect police state.
Welcome to 2006 America where the government is too damn stupid to watch itself much less any backsliding citizen. We have a worse enemy than the government, a worse enemy than terrorists, we have ourselves.
Everyone has a camera. Everyone has a microphone. Everyone has a playback device. As fast as news is made, thousands of people have commented on it, and made their own videos lampooning it or defending it.
Does anyone believe for a nanosecond that if the Michael Richards incident at the Laugh Factory wasn't on video that this fallout would still have been on everyone's tongue, on everyone's mind? Would I stoop to blog it?
Or let me put it this way: If Mel Gibson was caught on police car camera screaming antisemitic epithets at those officers, would you be seeing trailers of Apocalypto right now?
For those who disbelieve I offer another piece of evidence: The LA riots of 1991.
And this works well when it uncovers injustices such as the beating of Rodney King and the rascist rant of a B-list actor who longs to be a stand-up comic. But allow me to make this slope rather slick...
Suppose a neighbor three houses down is videotaping out his window and catches you squirting some East Indian kids with a water hose in the summertime. It's all in fun. But on the video it looks like riot control. And it doesn't help that you're white. This gets put on YouTube, and various other internet video outlets and voila! Instant life failure. A well-meaning person's life is wrecked beyond repair. Videobites, soundbites, gossip. It's all the same. Half-ass information passed as gospel dooming the lives of many.
It's a world of our own design.
What need is there for religion in a society like this? Who needs a floating eye to watch over us and to judge us. We have that here and now. Your neighbor's cameraphone, the judgment of the media, and the punishment of the state. It's all there. We need no afterlife to await this justice.
I am not in the least defending Michael Richards' actions.
I am saying - if this trend continues, it may not always be for the good. Beware!

Mutating Commercials

2006-11-27T20:19:00.000-08:00

Are you an avid TV watcher?
Do you watch the same commercial over and over (especially on the Discovery, History and National Geographic channels)?
Do you have a choice?
And when you have these delectable morsels of art and culture memorized, do you notice slight differences in the retelling?
Are you slowly going nuts? Is TV really the brainwasher we've all been brainwashed to believe?
Well, fret no more, my televisual freund, you are not going crazy. The commercials have been edited.
Want some examples? I thought you would...

The AXA Equitable commercial

This is the commerical starring a couple in their 50's and a 500 pound silverback alpha male mountain gorilla with the power of speech and an uncanny knowledge of retirement investment options. In these spots (and there are two of them) the couple pretends to ignore the gorilla while, with the help of his trusty laptop, which does nothing more than show the AXA logo, he chastises the couple for not using AXA to get their retirement annuities started. Then he closes with "But what do I know? I'm just the 500 pound gorilla in the room."
In the first spot, the couple is having breakfast. In the second one, they are trying to sleep for the evening. In the first spot I remember the gorilla saying this "I couldn't sleep at night knowing that you didn't save, heck, invest in an AXA mutual fund or annuity." Now he says the same thing, but replaces 'heck' with 'even'. Why? Did heck offend somebody? Was it too lowbrow for the highbrows? They then add a line while the gorilla is off-camera: "Give AXA a call." I can understand this addition as AXA probably felt they weren't making it clear that it would be AXA and not the gorilla that would help people invest.
In the second spot, he finishes his spiel and leaves the bedroom. He used to say, "Good night." and then he turns off the lightswitch. But in the new edited version the gorilla concludes with "Give them a call... for me." So, if you noticed any differences in the new spots, you're not crazy, you're just attentive...maybe too much so (myself included, obviously).

The Tractor Supply commercial
Talk about cheap-ass! No actors. No suits. No animation. No computer graphics. Just a bunch of stationary, motionless, handpainted wooden dolls. I suppose someone thought that this would appeal to the rural crowd, (what farmer or hunter can say no to crafted wood?) but I think it's a stretch. Anyway, in their Christmas spot, the two wives of the two farmer protagonists are decorating a Christmas tree in one of their homes. The camera flashes back and forth between the two female dolls so we know who is talking because with motionless dolls we have to have that. The short-haired one comments on how she had the boys help out at the mall for Christmas. Then we are shown the two men in a nativity scene dressed as shepherds. On a close up of one of them (presumably the husband of the short-haired doll), he says, "Sweet Molly in a manger." Fin.
I didn't think it was funny, but then again, I don't find any of the Tractor Supply commercials very funny. But the edited version is strangely brief. In the first version, after the short-haired wife makes her comment, the camera shows the other wife (a blonde I think) who says, "Well, that was nice of them to do that." The new version cuts that retort out completely. And instead of "Sweet Molly in a manger" he get "Hmmmm..."
Same lack of humor. Different package.
Why did they even bother? What was the point of this edit? Again, someone probably found "Sweet Molly in a manger" discomforting or even sacriligious, after all, it was Sweet Mary that was in the manger. And why should she be Sweet? Was the sedentary, wooden farmer lusting after her? I dunno. This whole commercial is a waste of time. Almost as bad any Verizon commercial. If I see that Buddy Holly lookin' asshole and his cadre of Verizon employees one more time on TV, I'm gonna vomit! But there was one good one: the one where the company is having a meeting about using their laptops anwhere in the US, and each of the members mentions a place and the salesman/IT guy says "No problem". The look on the blonde guy while he is going through his "Vegas, baby! Yeah!" and discovers that his boss is right behind him is priceless humor. But that's me.

The Travelocity commercials

What is it with immobile, wooden dolls? It's cheap-ass, that's what!
But I must admit that I kinda liked their commercials. I mean, seeing the gnome get run over by a clothes rack, knock over people's drinks while floating on a lawnchair with helium balloons and finally getting electrocuted in the klieglights of a football stadium. I got a chuckle.
But the latest one, about the Bermuda Triangle, was simple ho-hum fare. Except recently...
I was watching NGC (that's National Geographic Channel, not New Galactic Catalogue for those astronomers out there), and noticed that the gnome was replaced! They now have a dumb-looking fat guy wearing a pointy red hat and liederhosen mouthing the same words, verbatim, that the garden gnome used to say. It was the same commercial -- just a different gnome. I kept waiting for a follow-up commercial to explain it, but nothing. That was weird...
Eventually, an explanatory commercial did show. Some dumb bitch named Mary O'Hara posing as an investigative reporter is on the trail for the roaming gnome. Her lame report is on gnomewatch.com. Please do not visit this website despite my link. It's like your kid going to Kraft.com so he can find Twister McGee for the Cheetos Cheetah. I mean, I went there and got retarded by exposure.
And why is Mary O'Hara latino??
On the other hand why is Brian Perez whiter than Wonder Bread?
The World May Never Know...

Well, There Went October

2006-11-02T19:31:00.000-08:00

Not a single blog for October. What gives? I dunno. Had nothing to say I guess. Or I was too damn lazy to do what I am doing now (i.e. typing a blog entry).
My job is going well. I still make mountains out of molehills so I can never achieve a balanced and content state of mind. That is my new conundrum: how to still the ever worrying mind.
Therefore I am studying Buddhism in an effort to know myself better and hopefully to quell these disparate and bothersome thoughts that pervade my everyday life.
Today, however was a good day. Tomorrow... who knows?

So what's new?
I had a very good time with an old friend from way back. We will just call her D. I haven't seen her in twenty years and after finding each other while conversing about a twenty year reunion that neither of us attended, we decided to exchange e-mails and phone calls. It felt good to finally hear from her again. She was the first girl I had a serious crush on in High School and you know what they say about first crushes...
So this past weekend (Halloween weekend, unbeknownst to me) D and I meet at a nice restaurant in Sacramento. I told her I would be half an hour late in getting there, but my foot protested and I ended up in Sacramento on schedule. D, however, was, how shall I put this, SUPER-LATE, but it gave me the opportunity to nurse a Cosmopolitan and watch the World Series and have bartenders and waitresses comment on my lonely state. In fact, D was trying desperately to call me and tell me she was going to be SUPER-LATE, but my phone as most of my friends already know is usually out of juice and sitting in some isolated dimension not far from Limbo, that is to say, my car. So I never got the message. Think of the film 'Immortal Beloved' or 'An Affair to Remember' except nobody composes a master symphony or gets hit by a car.
Finally, she arrives and we hug. Awwwwww. We eat appetizers. Pizzettas w/mushrooms. Yum. Mr. Cosmo meet Miss Cabernet Sauvignon. Yum. We motate. Now, D coined this illustrious verb and I am still wondering if it is some amalgam of mutate and motivate which means, I suppose, that we should be morphing uncontrollably while simultaneously moving toward a common destination. Oddly enough, it was we who remained static and everyone else was mutated... but I'm getting ahead of myself...
This next chapter I have entitled: Gimme Fiction sans Spoon or Gimme Chopsticks or maybe Gimme a goddamn glass of cold water....PLEASE for the LOVE of GOD!
Yes, my friends, we motated toward a sushi bar. I forget the name of it and D did too, but she knew the proprietors and the waiters here (come to think of it, she knew everyone at every place we went...hmmmm). Some dude with a red nose and a shirt that had emblazoned upon it the single word: CLOWN, seated us. And a petite, asian girl who D called by the singular name of 'slut', gave us our menus. The sushi was excellent. I mean excellent. And also fucking HOT! One of these bozo sushi chefs was jealous of my date with D and laced my shrimp in Hell Sauce. We had no water so I was forced to wash it down with cold Saki. Jeezus Christ! Don't ever do that. I also remember some lovely conversation which went from fifteen decibels to about two-hundred by the time we left. It was like some Conversational Bolero. And like Bolero it ends in a deflating crash as I down my fourth glass of Saki. Now, it should be known that Saki and I have a history...not a good one I might add.
Long ago, at the height of my Party Phase, I was at a person's house in Sacramento and it was a Halloween shinding come to think of it! And he had this Saki in a pot and under a flame. I drank it. I continued to drink it. End of Brian as a socially acute, intelligent, sentient being. When you drink this shit you are either Buddha or a slug. There is no Middle Way with Saki. As you might already be guessing, I tend toward the latter.
Anyway, I have four sakis in me. Note that. We then travel (we quit motating I think at this point) to the Bonn Lair which is a favourite haunt of Britons and Scots. We met the bartender and his wife and a man named Lou. This guy had me splitting my sides. His acerbic wit and British accent had me rolling. D was also in a fit of laughter as we both tried to stop laughing in front of this lass dressed as Wonder Woman (remember it's Halloween weekend) because... nevermind. Some things are not meant to be written. All I remember is the word 'Growler'. Which is unfortunate because I named a race of dog-men Growler in one of my novels. Looks like a name change is afoot. Not long after, a mob of costumed Dionysian revelers broke into the joint and I downed a couple Guinesses. (Cosmo+Red Wine+Saki+Guinesses)
Oh Damn! I almost forgot. We went to Tapa the World before the Bonn Lair. But there's not much to tell at that establishment, I'm afraid. I drank a beer with Satan and listened to a Flamenco guitarist, and had some more spirited conversation with D. That was all. D begged to leave that place, so I obliged her.
Back to the Bonn Lair... So we were witnessing a Bacchanalia with these wine-drunk revelers and D decided to take them to another place in her SUV. So we ferried these lost souls to the next and final stop in our Itinerary of Debauchery - a place whose name eludes me. Perhaps it's just as well. Maybe it was Hell. I'll never tell. Muhahahahaha.
Now this place was more my style: Pool table, shuffleboard, darts, dirty and rough. These are places I grew up with. It was only fitting that I end my night here. D is handing me MGD after MGD as I play a game of billiards with two mullet-headed individuals, one of which told me in no uncertain terms that Halloween was only an excuse for women to dress as sluts. Whatever. The Book of Drunken Etiquette demands I say "Hell, yeah!" and give him a high five, which of course I did. After the game, I remember a girl dressed in a Twister game mat and spinner (I almost spun it) and meeting a saint, who got a little pissed at me when I said I was a former seminarian. Then I went into the bathroom and did a comedy routine which lasted about five minutes (It's hard to tell duration when you're tanked).
Time to go home.
I wonder if anyone told the bartender that since the clock changed, we should get an extra hour of drunken fun. Nope. No one did.
D can't drive, and neither can I so she calls her brother. O Brother, Where Art Thou? He finally shows up and they drop me off at my car on J street. They leave.
Guess what I'm doing.
One New Years Party long ago, I lied to my aunt and said I would stay at her house rather than me driving drunk back home. I swore to her later that I would never do such a thing again. Not the lying part, but the drunk driving thing. So, my superego, which never leaves me even in this drunken stupor, demanded I sleep in the car. So I did. At 5 o'clock I wake up and drive home. It was a painful drive.
A week later I realize that my red tie is missing. You see, I wore a red tie with my grey microfibre shirt and I removed it before we hit the sushi joint. It was in her SUV. She e-mails me and says she would like to mail it to me.
I understand now.
My behavior was so raucous, so asinine, so immature even at my near-forty age that she didn't want to see me anymore. The old 'leave the tie behind' trick failed me. I have no excuse now to go see her again. She has seen through my deceit and will mail back my tie via UPS. Screw red, what can BROWN do for you?

Didn't the Germans LOSE the war?

2006-09-20T22:44:00.000-07:00

Well, we had our September tournament of Axis &Allies on the 16th, and Rob Coulson finally lost his winning streak to John Hunter and his Perfect Army of Ubermensch (PAU). I fielded a Soviet army of spotters, PM mortars and a sniper. It had some promise, but failed more often than not. I also fielded a Japanese army of six Imperial snipers and some Arisaka riflemen and Type 92 AT guns. Someone say: "LOSERRRR." Yep, I came in last place out of four contenders. Wunderbar!
Matt Mansell came in 3rd with Rob Coulson in 2nd place. We play with historical army builds, that is to say we don't mix Japanese with Germans or Soviets with Americans. We also don't allow 1945 units. AT guns are considered in camouflage until moved or fired. Mortars cannot target aircraft (as well as flamethrowers).
But John Hunter taught us a lesson: the game is inherently broken.
That's right. This game that I invested over $600 in is broken. How? Well, the Germans are overpowered for one thing. The SS-Panzergrenadier is a 5-point piece while the inferior SS-Stormtrooper is a whopping 7 points. What Mr. Hunter fielded was a German army of nine SS-Panzergrenadiers, a Brummbar, a Hauptsturmfuhrer and some other units I can't or don't want to remember. Somehow, he beat the odds and got to pick Axis every time before a match. If he was forced to play an Allied army, he would probably lose, by his own admission. Has the game come to this? Flip a coin and whomever chooses the Axis (Germans) wins? Has the perfect army been found? The answer to these questions are a resounding 'yes'.
We have tried for weeks prior to the tournament to best this PAU build, but to no avail. Terrain and tactics matter little if you have the right pieces. So what to do? Chuck the game?
I hate wasting money and I'm sure you do too. So, John Peterson and I felt a few more house rules would surely balance things a bit.
If it were me in charge of the tourney, (and it's not), I would simply swap the point costs for the SS-Panzergrenadier and the SS-Stormtrooper. But for some reason, people don't want to monkey with the printed word (or number in this case). John added the entrenched special ability to the AT guns and gave spotters a +1 on cover rolls. So far so good.
But then he adds that no more than 20% of a given force can be Elite, Veteran, Hero or 5/5 defense pieces. But you are always allowed at least one such piece. I think this makes good sense. Having a total Hero force or a total Elite tank squadron is a bit overkill and though a tad unrealistic, it makes for better balance. Remember this game is a game first and a war simulator second (I would argue fourth or fifth). It's no fun especially for newbies to play in a game where the winner is predetermined by a die roll for who picks the Germans.
I am a social gamer first and foremost. I don't play to win so much as to have a good slog of a battle where it comes down to that last die roll at the last turn. Those are the best and most memorable games, no matter what game it is you're playing. So if we have to add a few house rules to keep the game fun and viable, then I say so be it. Do these new rules doom the PAU build? Probably. But that's a good thing I believe. We need to keep the diversity and the mix of army possibilities alive without stagnating into a 'now we found the best army so the game is done' sort of deal. It's no different with Magic: The Gathering. They keep shuffling the playable cards around to keep the decks fresh and force inventive and imaginitive deck strategies into the fray.
In short, this next tourney on October 14th is going to be interesting.
I'll keep ya posted...

The Demonskar Ball: The Director's Cut

2006-09-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

This is what I sent John Peterson prior to our last game. You will notice similarities and great differences. Here goes...

I want to preface my actions with this little blurb:

Sprited gelding, black with white socks, knows four tricks = 300 gp

Gnomeskein harlequin suit with diamond patterns complete with jester's cap and three bells each in a different note with silk chequered scarf = 600 gp.

Ceramic grotesque mask, half black/half white with gold inlaid tatoo patterns around the eyes and cheeks = 100 gp

El Kabonging a nobleman who had a bit too much to drink... priceless!

Having spent 150 gp on dancing lessons, Flaine felt quite confident that his reputation shall do naught but increase at the ball.
Flaine primarily hung out with the religious elite. He expected to find Ix among this crowd, but Link?? Hmmmm. As he played this very rhythmic song which he 'borrowed' (as songsters often do) from the surrounding tribes of the Amedio Jungle, Link started doing this... 'thing'. It was a rather jerky, quirky movement but timed expertly to Flaine's rhythmic strums. Interesting, Flaine thought, but kinda stupid. The strumming bard was frightened that he might be 'associated' with this little golem with motor-reflex issues, so he ends his song hurriedly, grabs a glass of Jungle Juice from a nearby half-naked half-elf and scurries to another murder of nobles.
Some hours later, another bard (Flaine didn't know his name - "Just some amateur", he thought) ended his romantic serenade (he was playing a viol de gamba) and some noble dressed in a blue sash and wearing a sparkling silver eye-mask marched up to him and sputtered, "Silence, you mountebank, I am now...drunk!" Everyone laughed, but this only angered him the more. "Do you think my words are folly?" he continued regrettably, "When I speak in my household (it took him a few tries to say that, btw) I am obeyed! This ball is no different! So...silence, buffoon!" And with that, he took the bow from the musician and snapped it in two against his knee. Everyone in a twenty-foot radius gasped. Flaine strutted toward the noble.
"That wasn't very nice, sire. Taking away the man's only means to sustain himself." Flaine theatrically gestured.
"Who are you?" the noble spat.
"I am Flaine Gilgahar, rhymester and bard, at your service."
"Am I to be plagued with your kind, tonight?"
"Apparently. Fate has a strange way of doing the opposite of what you'd like. Especially, when you tempt fate by doing what you just did here."
"I answer to no one save the gods!" the noble said.
"And what god is it that teaches you to break the bows of bards?"
Whap! The masked nobleman slapped Flaine with his bejeweled, white glove. "I will take no moral lesson from a mountebank!"
At this, Flaine, though stung, started to laugh.
"What's so damn funny?" the noble asked.
"Laugh. And the world laughs at you!" Flaine strummed his mandolin, but the effect he desired did not materialize. So much for Tasha's Hideous Laughter. Flaine went white. Uh oh.
The nobleman unsheathed his gleaming rapier and lunged toward Flaine in a fit of rage. Flaine dodged it, but not easily. "How the hell did he get a rapier in here?" he thought.
The battle went back and forth...but mostly back. Some plumed guards showed up, but Flaine was wroth to discover that they only served as a velvet rope to surround what they considered a fair duel.
Ix made his way to the circle. "Flaine! What did you do this time?" he screamed into the fray.
While dodging thrusts and swipes, Flaine stammered out, "No time to explain."
A twenty seconds later the noble had him. Trapped, with his back to a guard and the point of a very sharp rapier at the nape of his throat.
"I have news for you, bard. I'm not drunk anymore."
Flaine gulped. "I kinda figured that."
"You are a saucy knave. And I'm feeling magnanimous at the moment. That is a very nice mandolin you have there. Why don't you offer it to me. You will GLADLY offer it to me... for your life." the nobleman creased a greasy smile.
Flaine heaved a sigh. He took the mandolin (which he was using to parry a lot of the noble's attacks) and offered it to him; both hands still on the neck. As the noble looked down at it, gloating over his prize, Flaine smacked him with an uppercut to the jaw. Teeth and blood flew from the nobleman's mouth. As well as a roar of pain and rage.
Flaine had no idea how he escaped the clutches of the surrounding guards, but he figured Ix or someone else lent a helping hand. Flaine left the palace grounds and rested near some fountains at a plaza outside the palace. There he saw Avenal filling up a waterskin. "What are you doing here?" Flaine huffed.
Avenal gave Flaine a sidelong glance, "Balls aren't my thing."
Flaine grimaced, "You know under less dangerous circumstances I'd make a joke about that, but I'm too tired."
Avenal looked up and noticed a contingent of guards making their way down the palace steps, glowrods and swords in hand. "Who'd you piss off this time?"
"I don't know. That's the problem. I got an idea he was a bigger wig than I could wear. It was all I could do to keep him off of me."
"They're getting close. You better go." Avenal remarked.
With that, Flaine ditched his bell cap into the fountain and vanished into the shadows of the night.

What a night! So much for reputation...

It's a good thing that John changed it to where I am not doomed or otherwise exiled from Cauldron, but I felt the truth must be told. So, for those who play this game with me and wondered what I was referring to when I mentioned 'the e-mail' to John, this is what it was. Take it for what it's worth.

Where the Hell Have You Been?

2006-09-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

Geez, I got a few stories to tell regarding that.
My job has been going well. Busy. Which is always a plus. My car's engine light came on last night on my way home from work, so I have that going for me.
Other than work (and that's a lot) I went to ConQuest SF and ran a game of Twilight Imperium 3rd edition which was a full house (six players). It went famously! I played the Naalu Collective against the L1Z1X Mindnet, the Barony of Letnev, the XX'cha Kingdom, the Yssaril Tribes and another empire that I have forgotten. All I remember is that he played the yellow pieces and loaded up for bear, attacking the Xx'cha Kingdom for over half the game. The game lasted six hours (which is about par for a six player game), but a great time was had by all.
I got these four six-sided dice with my name on the number one spot which was cool. I also bought a T-shirt and a couple games: Zombies!!! and Zombies!!! 2: Zombie Corps(e) as well as two Wings of War expansions: Top Fighters and Recon Patrol. Good times!
I met some friends from Patterson while I was there as well as Phil who was totally wrapped up in his Flames of War games. I played two games of Ra, some Wings of War, Masons, Puerto Rico, and El Grande.
I could only stay for one day (this was over Labor Day weekend) because I had to get to John Peterson's D&D game on Sunday.
The only thing I have to say about that Sunday game is: Flaine is STILL a very accomplished mandolin player regardless of what the intelligentsia of Cauldron may say. Only by the slimmest of margins did my bard, Flaine Gilgahar, rescue the party from certain doom by a mirror image song and Tasha's Hideous Laughter. Pure luck. I would never have considered that that 2nd level spell would have affected a frost giant, but I'll take it. It's good to be the bard!
Today, I am about to test my Soviet army against The Ultimate German Army at the Axis and Allies minis tourney. In just a few hours, we will see if Rob Coulson will retain his title or finally be smitten by an upstart John Hunter with his Perfect Army of Ubermensch. I'll keep you posted on the results.
I ripped my right palm open with a nice laceration while removing a stuck toner cartridge in Modesto last Wednesday. No stitches, thank God. It was just a routine 'toner delivery' mission. And this lady was talking to me at a hundred miles an hour, while ripping the box open and shoving the toner into the Dell M5200 laser printer. Then she realized it didn't feel right so she tried to remove it where she found that it was stuck... hard. After a few minutes of her trying to remove the toner, I moved her aside and told her it would be best to have a professional handle this. So I start yanking and pulling and cussing. She wisely left the room. Sweat cascading down my grimacing face, I removed the printer and placed it on the floor for better leverage. Realizing that I may well destroy the printer, the toner, or both by doing what I was doing, I went ahead and YANKED that toner cartridge out of the printer! It came out. And the plastic guide jutting out of the cartridge went right across my right palm. (I yanked the toner out with my left hand). OOOOWWWWW! Goddamn! Now I have a great aversion to blood, especially my own, so I retained my composure, cleaned out my wound at the nearest restroom and applied first aid from the back of my car in the parking lot. It was really no big deal, but it looks like it'll take a week to completely heal. It turned out that the lady did not remove the orange spacer on the toner before shoving it in there. I have since learned that it would have been a smarter play to remove the fuser from the back of the printer and remove the toner that way. But you live and you learn. Luckily, the printer was not harmed. The plastic guide plate was displaced, but I put it back with little effort.
My roommate is thinking of starting a day-care center in her home (which I happen to share) so I had to go get tested for TB in accordance with California law. I hate needles and I hate blood. So my sacrifice regarding her entrepreneurial success was substantial. I have to go back today to find out if I'm a lunger. I'll keep you posted on that outcome as well.
Next blog entry, I'll talk about the Zombies!!! game I played with my friends up in Yuba City. It was a blast. See ya'll later.

"Now You Will Pay For Your Lack of Vision!"

2006-08-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

[Begin close-up of Flaine Gilgahar playing his masterwork mandolin. He addresses the camera.]
Remember those good ol' days in the 1980's when your DM could get you on simple oversights like not having a rod to probe your way through a trap-infested corridor, or not having a potion of sweet water to dilute the poison you just breathed in, or not having flint and steel to ignite the webs that you knew housed a bunch of giant spiders... well, you don't have to go back to the hallowed '80's to relive such innocence.
You just have to be at our last adventure. Lemme tell ya what happened...
[Zoom away from Flaine Gilgahar playing a masterwork mandolin in the Tipped Tankard Tavern, as he plays a familiar tune. The scene now warps and shimmies to reveal a new scene showing a sweat-laden party of adventurers going through a lava tube covered in webbing. The warping now stops and the voices of the party become clear.]
[Dramatis Personae: Brian P. as Flaine Gilgahar; John H. as Ix, cleric of Pelor; Shake as a fighter/wizard, Mike C. as Link and Mishka (a downgraded Mishka from what I understood), and Audrey P. as Laurel the draconic sorcerer.]

"Webs. Great." Ix sighed as he peered closer about the tubular walls. "No doubt we'll have to burn them."
"Okay." Flaine replied.
Everyone else went through their backpacks and pouches.
"You have got to be yanking my baptismal chain!" Ix cursed. "NO ONE has ANY means of LIGHTING a freakin' WEB!?!"
"I do believe the feather on your helmet is on fire." Flaine said.
"No shit, Sherlock. It emits light, not heat." Ix explained.
Flaine frowned, "Then why in the ninth Hell does it flame?"
"BECAUSE IT LOOKS COOL!" he replied.
Shake's character shook his head, "Well don't look at me. I don't have any ignition spells."
"Where's Laurel? She can light this whole corridor up." Flaine said.
"She's still in Cauldron, obviously." the cleric of Pelor intoned. "Didn't you light up Aeloc's web spell at the Lucky Monkey a few days ago?"
Flaine said, "Yes, Ix. With my last tindertwig. I didn't resupply when we reached Cauldron."
Amid Link's chuckles one could hear Flaine decry: "This is total bullshit!"
With heads hung low, the party returned to Cauldron to procure tindertwigs, flint and steel and alchemist's fire. I needn't explain to you the elation felt by John P., our DM, at this time.
[Zoom to close-up of John Peterson's slight chuckle which turns into a laugh, then a guffaw, then a full-blown mu-ha-ha-ha. At this time have ILM superimpose a demon's laughing visage on John's face then back to John's normal face.]
[Fade to scene of Flaine Gilgahar strumming a sad lay with a slow, descending tear rolling down his face. Editors note: please add flames and smoke to background from the muhaha afterward, including Flaine's scene.]
It was at this time that we were ambushed (if that can be possible in a two-way lava tube) by a couple of ettercaps: fierce humanoids who spin webs with their asses and spray them on their victims. Yeah...real fun.
[Quick switch to the party in the midst of combat with the ettercaps. Close up of Ix covered in webbing from one of the ettercaps spinnerets.]
"Pelor damn these foul creatures!" Ix yelled. After escaping the web, he lands a powerful blow to the ettercap with his mace, killing it.
"I'd help, Shake, but I'm stuck." Flaine managed to say while struggling with the webs sprayed on him by another ettercap.
Shake did him in a couple rounds later.
"To Cauldron!" Link declared.

[Voiceover of Flaine while showing outside scene of the mercenary recruiting office in Cauldron. Various people of various races are shown entering and leaving the building. Then Ix, Link, Shake and Flaine enter with a purpose.]
VO: We felt it was in our best interest, considering the lack of fighters in our party, to hire a mercenary from the local guildhouse. Of course the potential candidate had to meet our stringent qualifications...

[A half-orc fighter enters the room and sits on a wooden chair before Link, Flaine, Ix and Shake.]
Ix: Name?
Half-Orc: Is it important?
Flaine: Not really, but humor us.
Half-Orc: Borgaz
Ix: Do you hate ettercaps?
Borgaz: What?
Flaine: You have to hate ettercaps.
Borgaz: What are ettercaps?
Flaine: They're spider-like humanoids that shoot sticky webs out of--
Ix: That's enough Flaine.
Borgaz: I hate spiders!
Ix: That'll do. Check. Looks like you're hired. Congratulations.
Link (aside): Do we know this guy's alignment?
Ix: I cast a spell earlier. He's clean.

VO (Flaine): Thus did we enter the lava tube again; this time with another fighter in tow. We left a message for Laurel to meet us in the tube. We had no idea where she had gotten off to.

Entrance through the Lava Tube - Take Two.
[Far shot of the party moving through the lava tube, encountering the webbed walls.]
"Alright, dammit. Let's light this candle." Flaine said, striking the tindertwig and throwing it into the webs.
Poof. The webs ignited and dripped away with a blue flame reminiscent of some spirits he drank at the Tipped Tankard. But this alerted a couple more ettercaps which we took care of easily enough. Their damnable webs that they spun on us were always a hindrance, however. Laurel joined us and got to see firsthand what these ettercaps could do.
We made our way to the turnhouse on a cliff overlooking a small subterranean lake. And everything would have been fine, except that there were four human guards on duty.
"It's them!" they commented loudly, "Get those bastards!"
It was quite an uneventful battle. We had no problem dispatching them to their afterlives, except that in so doing we used up quite a bit of resources. And most of us had enough experience to advance to the next level. So guess what? That's right - up we go topside.
[Roll footage of jubilant party leaving lava tube... again.]
After we leveled up, we got some more potions and consumables and made our way back into the lava tube. We encountered no impediments en route to the turnhouse. But one thing did kinda stand out...
"Uh... I see the blood stains of our last battle, but where are the bodies?" Link asked.
"Oh oh." I mumbled. "That's not good."
Ix investigated the scene then turned to face us, "Well, wherever they took the bodies, they must have ended up in the turnhouse. Let's go." Just as he turned to make his way to the turnhouse, a lizard-scaled woman armed with a strange sword appeared behind Ix and struck home her venomed blow. "You killed my LOVER!" the strange woman screamed.
We tried to slay her for such a cowardly attack on our priest, but she evaded us, turning invisible and fleeing our vengeance.
Ix was weakened by her strike, but waved off our assistance. "Keep moving. I don't think we've seen the last of her." he said.
"Who the hell was that?" Laurel asked.
Link answered her, "She said we killed her lover, I wonder if she was referring to that tatooed woman who served the Triad."
"Heh, heh." I chuckled, "A lezzie yuan-ti. Hell, if we'd known that, I would've spared the tattooed lady and ordered an immediate demonstration of their love."
"Great, Flaine. Now you're a bard pervert." Laurel added.
"I heard it's a common prestige class. Ask Mondavi." I retorted.

I must apologize at this point for not completing this blog entry. In truth, this is so old and I have forgotten so much and another game has occurred since, that I cannot continue. I can promise no more synopses of our gaming sessions due to the fact that I have very little time to spend on such pursuits. Again, my apologies...

A Change in the Weather...

2006-08-13T21:11:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's been rather hot lately, but that's not the weather I'm referring to.
I am finally employed.
Precision Imaging Solutions gave me a call and told me to start Aug 21st. I get a blackberry and a laptop. I'll be making more money than I made at Rite-Aid and get paid 47 cents a mile since I'm using my own vehicle. All in all, a sweet deal. So, next week I'll be in LA getting trained in Hewlett-Packard laser printers.
And I'll be a human being once more...
Couldn't come at a better time, either. Things are looking mighty tight around here.

Well, some good had to come my way because a few days after my birthday (July 27) my Axis and Allies collection was completely stolen from my car. Over $350 of miniatures disappeared overnight in front of my house. I was seriously miffed for a day, but the next day I felt better about it. After all, it was just a bunch of plastic pieces. Big deal!
Last week, after vowing never again to restart my collection, I did. I purchased over $100 of miniatures and started the process over again. I did this for three reasons. 1) If I didn't continue following my passion, the thief would have won. And I refuse to let him win. 2) If Stephen Dukes can rebound from an Axis and Allies minis robbery, so can I. and 3) I now have a job and can afford the investment.
So there ya go!

I have been working for Hobbytown USA in Tracy since July 31st. It only pays $8/hr and it's for four days a week, but it's something. At least until my training in LA begins. During that time I picked up Risk: Godstorm (a board game) because my brother took a liking to it. Then when I brought it with me to my parents' place last week, he refused to play it. I think I've had enough. The next game I'm gonna buy will be Goa. I played that game Thursday night with Ken Campbell and I thought it rocked.

Speaking of boardgames, John Peterson, John Hunter, Rob Coulson and I played Mare Nostrum last Saturday (in lieu of an abortive Axis and Allies tourney) and we had a real good time except that we had to quit at a critical point in the game due to time constraints. John P. played Greece, John H. was Carthage, Rob was Egypt, and I was Babylonia. I was spreading like a virus across Asia Minor while Egypt and Greece were both warring with me for Fish and Perfumes. LOL.
Today, we played again, but Rob Coulson couldn't make it so Mike Culberson joined in the fun. This time Babylon was out. I ended up playing Rome while Mike played Egypt. Rome and Greece butted heads while Carthage and Egypt made out like bandits in trade. By the end of the game, Carthage had the upper hand as he owned two heroes and a wonder. Greece could have stopped him, I think, but, again, we ran out of time and had to hand the victory to Carthage. I made a lot of mistakes this time around and vowed for a rematch. John P. said he would like nothing more than to finish one game of Mare Nostrum.

We played D&D on the 22nd of July and I have not yet composed a synopsis of the events. At this rate I will most likely forget everything that happened. But so much has been happening to me in my real life that I haven't had time to put thoughts to paper (or blogsite). Hopefully, I will tonight.
Well, that's the news from the western front. I hope this training and this job works out well for me. I shall remain positive in the weeks that follow.
Until again....

The Story So Far

2006-07-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

Let's see, I still have a job in the wings, sent out two dozen resumes, riding an emotional rollercoaster of financial woe and grief. I have one month left of life. Third week of August, I move back to Yuba City.
I have been so busy I have hardly had time to update my blogsite. I am semi-employed with Hobbytown USA, but at $8/hr, it doesn't pay the bills, though it helps. I didn't go to my 25 year High School reunion because I felt it was just bad timing for me. I don't want to show up at a reunion unemployed. It's embarassing and belittling.
The heat in California has been horrendous. My roommates and I decide to go to Lake Camanche about thirty miles east of Lodi. The temperature there was 117 degrees! The lake was in the 90's. More a sauna than a swim. The humungous 40 foot Weekend Warrior trailer that Csaba recently bought had two AC units installed - Thank God! But on the second day, one of them wasn't working very well. Threats of divorce and arguments galore cascaded off the faux wooden walls. I just tried to make the best of it all. I kept hydrated and went swimming with Csaba's sister. I think we had more fun than Csaba and Szoszi did. Anyway, it was fucking hot. End of story.
I have considered going back to work for Rite-Aid. I went to visit some folks at the RA depot this past Monday to investigate the possibility. It may require me to move to Fresno. We will see.
I have jury duty on August 8th. Fuck me. Can this happen at a worse time? I hope I am not selected, and if I am I will have to plead finanicial distress. And I wouldn't be lying.
I am so depressed I can barely smile. But I just keep plugging away at sending resumes and doing interviews in the hope that someone out there will give me a chance.
So that's the story so far. Wish it was better news.

Animal House

2006-07-07T08:24:00.000-07:00

Before I begin this latest synopsis of our D&D adventures, I should start with a caveat. Please realize that what you are reading is a rendition of events as seen by Flaine Gilgahar himself, with some Brian P. added in jokingly here and there. It is not, nor was it meant to be, an even-handed, objective account told from some mythical 'third-person narrator'. So, if you notice that your character doesn't get mentioned much in these chronicles it's only because Flaine didn't notice you either. Speak up. A good way to get mentioned is to have your character walk up and slap him for no good reason. That'll get mentioned. I promise. So, with that caveat, I now begin:
There is a festival in Cauldron. The Flood Festival. You see, the rainy season causes the caldera in which Cauldron is located to overfill and flood the lower streets (i.e. the poor districts). So as humans often do, they celebrate this wonderful occasion with a festival! Sitting in the Tipped Tankard Tavern are the assembled party, to wit: Laurel, Flaine, Gin, Avenal, Ix, Mondavi, Link and Mishka (well, Mishka was outside near the stable), and Aeloc (played by Bob, this was his first game with us. Aeloc is a fighter/wizard (I think...)). No shows: Qurynack Lock who is now version 3.0 but could not play since his player was moving his family into their new house.
The Flood Festival lasts a number of days and is filled with many sporting events and contests. One of them was the Drinking Contest. Laurel, Flaine (with some misgivings), and Gin (I mean, why not Gin?) elected to take on the various dwarves and humans of the city to see who could hold down their liquor. Laurel went on to the second round after five drinks! Dragon blood must aid one's constitution in such matters... Flaine the Wuss was out after two swigs. What a lame-o! Gin also went on to the second round after four drinks. As I understand it, no one from our party won. None of them made it to round three.
Next, the Escape from the Lake Monster! Now, I was practicing with my mandolin in my tavern room during all this so this is what I heard from Laurel who was there. I guess Mondavi came to this swimming contest dressed only in what he called a 'speedo'. I've never heard of a 'speedo' before but Laurel assures me that it's gross. She told me that his horns on top of his head were quite prominent leading her to believe (as I always did) that he might be of demonic or diabolic heritage. Laurel continued to inform me that the race ended so quickly (it broke the Cauldron record!) that the entire population there assembled were totally non-plussed. In fact, they seemed upset and hardly cheered the victor which happened to be...Mondavi! Avenal was also swimming in this contest and he infomed me that Mondavi was 'too quick'. Hmmmm. What was that scoundrel up to? I'm sure some magical hijinks were involved.
During all this madness, Ix recieved a missive from Jenya Urikes, priestess of St. Cuthbert (we've worked for her before). It said that the high priest of St. Cuthbert, Saracem Delasharn, was waylaid at a place outside of Cauldron called The Lucky Monkey, and he needed help immediately. Apparently, he was being held hostage by some primitive ape-men. Well, Ix wasted no time in informing the party and getting us all assembled. We bought horses, outfitted them, and made our way out of the city and down into the jungle on the main road. Through the warm rain we noticed the large wooden building. It had carvings of monkeys getting away with various and sundry antics on the walls in bas-relief. Oh, and the sign outside said, "The Lucky Monkey" in Common. Ix and Laurel peered through the broken windows of this travelers' inn and noticed that there were a group of ruffians tearing the place apart! Link, Avenal, and Mondavi moved around to the back of the building to get them in a pincer attack. Well.... Aeloc sprayed a magic web into the main hall trapping one bandit and slowing down a couple more. Laurel spat her lightning breath into the room taking out a bandit or two. Gin did a somersault through a glass window, landed on a wooden table and moved in with his twin bastard swords for the kill.
Meanwhile, in the rear of the inn... Link, Avenal and Mondavi heard crunching sounds emanating from the jungle behind them. But, it wasn't near enough for them to worry. Mondavi picked the lock on the back door and stood back. Avenal kicked down the door and, lo and behold, they run into some baboons and a mandrill mutant named Tongue-eater. After a couple rounds of combat, they realized that they weren't doing very much to this Tongue-eater dude. So, Mondavi and Avenal scatter around the inn to meet the rest of the party which, of course, is locked in combat. Link hops on Mishka and jets up the wooden wall onto the roof. Bam! The mandrill is up with his baboon buddies in no time. Link lets loose with an obligatory arrow and guides Mishka further up the roof only to discover... an open air atrium! I don't know if warforged have gods, but someone was looking out for him that day because Mishka leaped over that atrium and hopped down to meet the party on the other side. Stymied, Tongue-eater and his minions climb down the side of The Lucky Monkey and run past Mondavi and some bandits. Which is interesting since Mondavi looked just like one of the bandits. In fact, a few bandits actually took orders from him! Hats of Disguise are such handy devices aren't they? Unfortunately, as those same rogues turned their backs on him, Mondavi backstabbed one of them...well, he tried. And the battle was on.

Here's a well-known Cauldron rhyme:
Laurel had a necklace.
It's gems were bright and red.
And when she used the largest one
The fire-inspector was dead.

Flaine is actually going to use that lyric in his next song. But the reason I bring up that quatrain is because Laurel used her necklace of fireballs to unleash Hell on the ruffians, little did she realize that one of those bandits was Mondavi and he was around the corner, but well within the radius of said fireball. Thus did the great Mondavi perish, along with several other malcontents.
Avenal broke right and tried to lure the mandrill toward him. It worked. And from a distance, Laurel, Flaine and Avenal let loose on the creature. He finally died after another electrical jolt from Laurel's mouth.
Now earlier, Flaine had tried to get into the building to help the party. I broke open the locked and barred wooden double doors (wow!) and proclaimed: "We jus' busted up yer bandit zoo! Now yer dealin' wit' da Cauldron Crew!" and sang a song of courage. I dunno if you think that was a very courageous lyric, but... oh well. After I ignited the web with a tindertwig, Ix moved past me to engage the two bandits to the left of the bar. Mishka moved in there as well. Gin and Aeloc (thanks to burning hands) were taking out the right side. Eventually, all enemies were dead. And then there was Mondavi. I moved his crispy remains onto my horse.
We then moved to the rear of the building where there were stairs going down to a kind of cellar. We encountered another four banditos who we summarily dispatched with little effort. But at our feet was the decapitated corpse of Saracem Delasharn, former high priest of St. Cuthbert! We also rescued a half-drow druid/bard/monk named Shensiril from a refrigerated room. I noticed that brown mold was being used to keep everything cool. Nice. So we escorted her back to Cauldron.
In Cauldron, and in particular, the church of St. Cuthbert, we talked to Jenya and tried to get Saracem resurrected, but after speaking to his animated head (yuck!) realized that there may be 'ecclesiastical issues' with that. Okay....whate'er. Jenya informs us that Saracem had eight wands of Control Water that are used every year to control the annual floods. We found none on his corpse. So it is imperative that we find these lost wands or the city will become New Orleans pretty quick. And the rain ain't lettin' up anytime soon.
We are now entering Investigation Mode. Please remain seated until said mode is completed.
Link discovered through his interrogat--sorry, investigations, that three people were unaccounted for in the Lucky Monkey battle. So, they might have taken the wands. Mondavi is raised and healed courtesy of the St. Cuthbert priests and after being heartbroken at learning that his obsessi-- er, his love, baked him with the fireball (which Avenal was just chomping at the bit to tell!) decided to go do some legwork himself. (Btw, since Mondavi died by fire, the consensus is that he is NOT of the lower planes). He learns from a drunk that there is a secret entrance to the sewer system outside in the jungle on the other side of the wall. Now, when he initially informs Ix and Aeloc of this at the Tipped Tankard Tavern, he is met with incredulous stares. "C'mon, what do you take us for - fools?" quoth the Ix, "You got this information from a drunkard? And you expect us to go traipsing about in the jungle on this guy's say-so?" Well, we had nothing else to do, so Laurel, Flaine, Avenal and Link follow Mondavi to this entrance. After moving a few bushes and crap, there it was! After we argued for a while about who was going to go in there and how far, Laurel told us there was a peninsula deep inside probably about 2400 feet with some machine attached to it. And some caves which have something scary in them. It turns out she sent her bat familiar in there while we were carrying on. Good call. We go back to town and inform Ix and Aeloc that they should come with us. And soon, we are all assembled and entering the entranceway.
Investigation mode has completed. Begin search and destroy mode. Thank you. Be well.
We make it down to a cliff overlooking a placid pool of water. To get across to the strange architecture on the other side, we need to use this machine. That is to say, a cage that is ferried across by cable to the other side. We investigate the turnhouse where the muscle-powered winch is located and discover a couple of workers. We press them into service (I would have rather enthralled them with my music, but I failed to communicate this and we ended up pressing them by threat alone). Dumbly, I volunteered with Avenal and Laurel to go into the cage. As Ix and Link forced the workers to push the winch, they stopped it right over the middle and hit the alarm button. A horn sounded throughout the cavern. Ix, Link and Aeloc did in the workers and they ferried us back. Eventually we all got across and entered the strange melting architecture. We took what seemed to be the main entrance. After coming upon a meeting chamber, we had a choice of three doors. The center one led to a series of arrow slits that Laurel's bat triggered. It was unhurt. The left door was a bunch of hanging ropes. After opening the door beyond it, some idiot from within the door hurled a flask of alchemist's fire at us igniting Mondavi (of all people). Mondavi is now a pyrophobe. Which makes sense for a fire-inspector, dontcha think? The right door opened to a room painted in a strange pattern. We made our way in and when someone opened the other door spikes jutted out from every place in that room. Luckily, Pelor saw to it that Flaine was not a victim. We moved in before the trap reset and barged into the chamber were the archers were (the ones that tried to shoot the bat earlier) and we took forever to waste these goblinoids. Flaine began to worry. Another bout like that and we were done for. I moved ahead with Mondavi trying to cover as many rooms as possible, a tactic that Ix thought was rather spurious and foolhardy. And it was. But Flaine felt that time was of the essence, so when I creaked open a door and shone in my sunrod and found a bubbling pool, some training dummies and some women's underwear, I related my find with Mondavi. Mondavi immediately pushed me aside nearly dropping my sunrod and he barged in saying, "The hairs we may find may.....mumble mumble mumble..." Well, truth to tell, I couldn't remember what he said because this tattooed (and I must say, rather voluptuous) woman and her host of miscreants waylaid us and started attacking with a vengeance. I was surprised at the efficiency of this battle. I mean, the adrenaline must have kicked in and we got our shit together, because we took minimal damage and we wasted that bitch! We found three wands in her possession and we totally ripped her off and her cohorts. The party then decided that we were low on spells and resources and that we need to get back to town. I thought this was a bad idea, but I was outvoted and I'm not gonna stay underground by myself, so I went with them back to Cauldron. But we must return quickly if we are to save the city from eventual inundation. We found three, but where are the other five?
Oh, and before I forget, you might have noticed that Gin wasn't mentioned much beyond the Animal House incident. Here's the reason why. See if you can decode this cryptogram:
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz z.
I know it's a toughy. Ranks up there with the Enigma and Da Vinci codes.

Until again....

Is It Possible? Can It Be?

2006-06-28T22:44:00.000-07:00

Well, folks, looks like I'll be employed here pretty soon....

When it rains, it pours...

I don't want to name names, but I am just one background check away from a job with P.I.S. (Great. I was trying to preserve their anonymity with an acronym and it ended up spelling PISS, that's great). However, thanks to Dan Ryan, my friend who is returning to Sacramento, I have an opportunity with D.A. (Duck's Ass! The fun never ends!)

I don't want to violate either company's privacy or mine for that matter so I will just say that I have a decision to make and it must be made very soon.

But if my cards are played right, I should be gainfully employed in a full-time position with a major company by the second week of July.

Stay tuned...

We shall fight them on the streets, we shall fight them on the hills...

2006-06-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

It may come as some surprise to you that I am playing Axis and Allies miniatures right now. Or maybe not. Actually, I am surprised at myself. I didn't think I would be interested in a wargame like this, but I am hooked. I haven't been this addicted to something since Banana Schnapps. From the beginning of June to this day I have accumulated over 700 points in miniatures. I can almost field a totally French army! (which is a secret goal I have...). After playing some test games last week at John Hunter's War Lab, John reasoned that he would be better off fielding a Jagdtiger in his German army than his Veteran Tiger tank. I told him I preferred the Veteran Tiger because it was a crack shot, even though it had a lower defense than the Jagdtiger.
Soon, June 10th arrived and it was the 2nd A&A tournament at Hobbytown USA on Tracy Blvd. Rob Coulson was the present champion sporting his Hero Medal for all to see. It was Swiss rounds with single elimination and a final 200 point army showdown on a megamap for the final battle.
My first battle was with.. guess who? John Hunter. He was Axis, I was Allies. Okay, we can write this one off! Sure enough, I lost to his Jagdtiger (which I happened to disrupt, which was more than I could do during our War Lab tests). So I was 0-1. Next battle was with Matt. I fielded my US/UK mix 100 pt. army against his tried and true Germans. We generated an Urban Combat map and I had lots of infantry. This game took forever! Eventually, it was turn 7 and even though the objective was contested John Peterson called it due to time constraints and I had just wiped out his two remaining infantry in the objective hex. I won. It was a very close game. Matt felt a little cheated because he was unaware that the adjacent hexes to the objective also counted as the objective. I was 1-1.
My next game was with Stephen Dukes. He was 2-0. We generated a High Ground map. He picked a German army (go figure) against my now battle-hardened Allies. It was right down to the wire. By turn seven I got the objective with my infantry without contest. Since this round was the first of the single elimination rounds, that meant that Stephen was out. He was a bit miffed with this, but we all knew the rules before we came in. In essence, I won the wild card playoffs. I was now 2-1.
Our game ended a little early so I went over and watched the last game left: John Hunter and Rob Coulson (last month's champion). John was Axis, Rob was Allies. What a chess match! John was manuevering his Jagdtiger trying to avoid Rob's tactic of going behind his tank, taking advantage of his lack of turret and nailing his weaker rear armor. I began to worry. If John wins it will be another John vs. Brian match and I'll lose. Unless! Unless I win choice and then I would pick Axis since I know that John wasn't comfortable with his Allied army, plus it's one less Jagdtiger to deal with. By a slim margin, Rob won. Now it was Rob vs. Brian at the megamap final battle.
We had to construct a 200 pt. army for this match. I hurriedly crammed together some Polish and French troops with more UK. Rob fielded a strong German army with no other nationalities involved. When he saw my army, since I deployed first, he commented on the ahistorical mix of allies. I replied that since this was the Armageddon battle, all the allies joined together in a final assault on Berlin. He laughed and shook his head.
The megamap that Matt and John Peterson put together was a large town in the center (where the main objective was located) flanked by lakes with streams going to the north and south off the board. These streams realistically had forests on either side of them. I had choice of sides and I deployed on the heaviest forested side, but also had to contend with a second stream which was placed five hexes out from my side of the board. This made it very difficult to mobilize units toward the objective in a timely manner, thus forcing me to use the one bridge to get anywhere. I stubbornly avoided this bottleneck and traversed the stream, much to my dismay, as one of my tanks and my hunting sniper had some difficulty in crossing it during the match. After Rob deployed his forces, I sent my two Polish 7PTdw's racing past the objective to deal with his infantry. I succeeded in wiping out a MG team or two, but his tanks were waiting for me on hills and it was a turkey shoot. No Pole survived....
It was all a matter of getting my infantry to the town. In the gaps of terrain in between forests or roads, his guns would pick me off. I finally got to the town on turn 7. It was then that Rob started moving in his armor to face me in a knife fight in the town. It was at that point that John called it. Since the objective was contested we went off points on the map and Rob won. It was then that Rob did a noble thing: Knowing that he was strapped for time (this contest took a while) and he had to leave, rather than play the three extra turns to decide a winner by the rules. He gave me the option of walking away with two booster packs instead of the one I would have won and he would get two also (instead of three) plus the medal for June champion. I agreed. I wasn't interested in bragging rights or championships, I just wanted the boosters. So we shook on it and Rob became the A&A champion for the second month consecutively.
I did not dream of making it that far in the tourney. I had felt very elated at the end. Now I am a force to be reckoned with. I await the next tournament.
I'll keep ya posted...

The Khan of Cons... (no double entendre intended)

2006-06-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

So, after months of planning, I finally get to go to KublaCon in Burlingame over Memorial Day weekend. Watch this mileage:
I travel from Tracy to Yuba City to get my brother, who told me he wanted to go (this becomes important later), we then travel from Yuba City to Burlingame and park in the Hyatt Regency parking garage (9 bucks for the day), and enter the convention. We couldn't afford a hotel room so we left at midnight Friday to go back to Tracy (made it there by 1 am), get five hours sleep then drive back to Burlingame only this time the parking garage was full. So we were forced to accept valet parking. Now at this time I did not know how much they would charge us for this wonderful service, but I was expecting that since it was the fault of the hotel to not have enough parking for their customers, that we would get it for free or a discounted rate. Wrong! I got skinned for $25! When I left and the valet stood there waiting for a tip I gave him one... "Tell your supervisor that one of your customers is a little pissed off at having to pay $25 to park at your overcrowded hotel!"
So coupled with being skinned alive at the hotel and Mike's (my brother) incessant complaining of 'nothing to do' at the convention, I agreed to take him back home the following morning. So, we go back to Tracy, get up the next morning and go back to Yuba City, drop him off at his friend's so he can get sloshed (I guess this was his idea of 'something to do') and realizing that my day is shot with more holes than Bonnie and Clyde's sedan, I go to visit my friend, Dean, at Rio Oso. I help him put up a couple pony walls on his new house he's building. We go to his place and play a 3-player game of Family Business (which I just bought at KublaCon the day prior). Which was fun. Dean asked if I was going back tomorrow. I said that I would. He wanted me to get him some multicolored dice and he gave me some cash. Cool, I told him that I would do that for him. He got this idea after I told him of the Chessex kiosk I found at the Con. So I go back to Tracy that night from Marysville. The next morning I get up early and head for Burlingame where they (surprise!) have room at the parking garage. Then at about five o'clock pm I leave and head back to Tracy. Mission Accomplished!
A lot of driving, huh?
Well, now that we have the bad news out of the way, let me tell you of the reason why I went back for a third day after an aborted two days of a four day convention: Games, games, games!
The first day I played Antike with four other players. Now, this game I understand is not yet in print in the U.S., but I found the mechanics of the game quite interesting. There is this circle in the top right corner of the board (and btw, the board looks similar to the one in Serenissima). This circle is how turns are executed. You place your marker on one slice of this circle and you can move it up to three places without penalty. If you move it beyond that, you have to pay one coin per place moved beyond the third. Of course, in most cases, what you want to do is beyond the three freebies. But if you just want to produce gold and stone and stuff, you can play it the cheap route and just move it two to three at a time. It reminded me of Caylus in retrospect but I had not yet played Caylus at this point. (I buy that game on Day 3). I didn't win the game, but I learned a lot and the people I played with were very fun and entertaining. In fact, I had more fun interacting with these folks than playing the actual game. Which is the point, I believe.
We had to move our game to another table because of the Friday Night Flea Market which Mike was dying to get into. He brought about $100 and blew it all in that hour. He headed straight to the Magic: The Gathering card dealer and that was all she wrote... All I heard from Mike after that was "He had Clones for fifty cents! He had a shitload of Clones and they were all FIFTY CENTS!!" Ad nauseum.
The next day (Saturday) was the Big Day. The garage was full which meant everybody was there. Mike and I wandered around the vendor shops (Chessex, Days of Wonder, Steve Jackson Games, etc.). We sampled and played with some of the weapon displays. Got to see some nice zweihanders and claymores (the swords, not the mines). Then I saw a guy all by his lonesome opening a new game. It was Wings of War. Well, I had mine with me so I introduced myself and offered to play a game with him. He was elated. It turned out he lives in Patterson, which isn't too far from Tracy, and he knew about the CVGA and wanted to join. I told him I happened to be one of the moderators of the site and would be happy to have him. So we played a few two-player games of WoW. 1st game was two fighters. 2nd game was two fighters, 3rd game was one fighter and one two-seater on a recon mission. Then his friends showed up and we played a game of Ra. This attracted another gamer who promptly got in during setup and we had a four-player game of Ra. After two games of that, we played Carcassonne with the Inns and Cathedrals expansion (as well as The River I). I forgot who won that, but it was a fun game. That game never ceases to impress or surprise me. After those festivities, everyone broke up and went their separate ways. A good time was had by all.
Mike was, meanwhile, playing M: TG with several people. After a while, I set up a game of Nexus Ops and tried to attract people to play it - but no takers. I was amazed that during this whole event I had not seen one game of A&A minis. Not one. Everyone was playing Flames of War and Civil War and Mechwarrior and Necromunda and Warhammer 40K and Memoir '44, but not one game of A&A minis. Strange... They should visit Tracy sometime...
For reasons already expressed, I was not there for Sunday.
But Monday, though depressing, (and I did get Dean those multicolored dice, not to mention some dice of my own :-)), was not a total loss. I did get to buy Caylus and Kung Fu Fighting. I also got to play Merchant of Venus with some folks from Washington state. What a LONG game! It didn't help that one of the players was suffering severe sleep deprivation and downing coffee like no tomorrow. It also didn't help matters that the sun from the overhead windows (we were playing just outside the atrium on the second floor balcony) beamed its hot radiation in such that I borrowed one dude's shades to see the board. It got so bad that we moved the table (thankfully without incident). The sleep deprived dude won the game! And he was new to this game, to boot! Damn! But I did understand it a lot better now that I've played it. Instead of the colored pawns for the starships, I broke out my Twilight Imperium ships which helped the immersion factor tremendously. And this guy (the host, I forget his name, as usual) used poker chips for money instead of the bills that came with the game. Many people came by and commented on the game. Some thought it was a reprint or new edition due to the poker chips and TI ships. But it's a cool game. John Hunter, later on, told me he has an unopened box of this game. That will soon end....
After that game (which lasted a few hours), I kinda just moped around watching everyone else play. Room after room had closed, chairs were stacked, tables put away. I realized that the time to go was now. So, I regretfully got in my Honda and went home.
I had fun, no doubt about it, but next time - I get a room at the hotel.
See ya at ConQuest SF in September, I'm hosting a TI3 game and a Nexus Ops game.
Bye-bye!

An Apology...

2006-06-08T01:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the delay in getting any new posts out.
I have been extremely busy in finding jobs. I worked as a roving inspector, deputized by the county of San Joaquin for this past June 6th primary election, of which, I must say the turnout was extremely poor. I was in charge of six precincts in northern Tracy. No more than 140 votes in any one precinct. I worked for 18 hours that day and I just now got the gumpshun to write a blog entry.
So anyway, if you were keeping up with the site and thought I finally killed myself off, fret no longer, I was just a little busier than usual, that's all.
My next blog entry will be about the last D&D game that we played in Tracy, then I'll finally cover the KublaCon convention over Memorial Day weekend, and the Shadowrun game I hosted this past weekend. Stay tuned....

C'mon... They're Just Goblins!

2006-05-25T20:03:00.000-07:00

Normally, I try to get these synopses out one to two days after the event while it is still fresh in my memory. This one was a little late due to a lot of job interviews, fighting depression, and racing around like a maniac before KublaCon, so -- I'm sorry already! I hope I get this right. If there is anything I left out or got wrong I am sure someone, next week, will alert me to it. Here goes:
First of all, Dramatis Personae: Flaine, Laurel, Mondavi (the rogue returneth), Link & Mishka (the leopard. Finally! I remembered!), Avinal the elf ranger, Qurynack Lock version 1.0, a half-giant barbarian played by Matt, and Ix, the cleric of Pelor.
Not here: Sir Galotte the aasimar paladin (he will no longer be with us as the player has moved to Arizona!), and Gin the human fighter played by Ken (he pulled 80 hours straight at some company function...), he later gets played in absentia by John H.
Okay, so at the end of last session, we received an invite from the constable of Cauldron. We start the game showing up there and he tells us about a rash of goblin raids going on throughout the city. We wander about like zombies trying to ferret any information about their point of origin. While Flaine, Avinal and Qurynack Lock are taking in the lovely goblin graffitti (Draknar is the Fog!, Draknar is dead - Long live Draknar!, Burzag is stinky, etc.), Mondavi is getting information from the insidious 'Mr. L.', a street-savvy underworld ganglord. He learns that most of Mr. L's soldiers are noticing a lot of activity near the bathhouse. As he later relates this to the party, Flaine realizes that he spent a day at that same bathhouse last week! The party pays the dwarf proprietor, Orak, a visit. He grumbles and gruffs at us and after Flaine tries to be conciliatory (being a semi-famous, previous customer) he relents and lets the party take a look around. Luckily, today, business isn't exactly booming as no one else is in the place. There is one door that Orak won't let us near. Well, as you can imagine, all sorts of hijinks take place trying to get into that door. Flaine tries singing a song of fascination - Orak is non-plussed. Qurynack Lock and Avinal try to get around the dwarf and to the door, but Lock can't seem to bust it open. Orak pulls out an axe and Lock is ready to fight him, then falls into a 3-foot deep pool (remember Lok v.1.0 is 7'5" tall) and pretending to drown. Ix, Mondavi and others try to 'rescue' the half-giant from this sorry attempt at bluffing. Finally, the bard casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter while playing a comedic lay (a comedic lay is an Old English phrase for funny song, not the Modern English for your first time, so stop it out there), and the dour dwarf starts guffawing involuntarily, rolling on the floor laughing - you know - ROTFL! The party takes advantage and ties the poor chap up in some hemp rope, we open the door and we saunter right in... little did we know....
The immediate area beneath the bathhouse seemed to be more forgotten dwarven ruins from an earlier era. However, these were infested with goblins. After searching through a few rooms, we were ambushed by a patrol of goblins with their worg buddy. Lock v. 1.0 was swinging his two greatswords with such abandon it was difficult for anyone else to get through to the goblins. Flaine ended up using his Cure Mod. Wounds wand to help the half-giant while Mondavi struggled with his goblin. The rogue scored a critical hit with his venomous dagger, but it had little effect. Laurel blasted a few goblins with her electrical breath (this is a common tactic for her now). The elven ranger shot arrow after arrow at the goblin threat. Then, at the sound of myriads of goblin feet, we were flanked! Crossbow bolts scattered toward Avenal and Laurel. Link and Mishka moved in for the kill and held the line, moving the party further away from Lock, Ix and Flaine (who are kinda busy with their own problems).
During this time there was a dispute with the Dragon magazine fumble charts...yada yada yada. Ain't wuth it McGee!
Suffice to say, the worg was slain, Lock went down due to the pesky goblins, Flaine jabbed him with the wand, Lock crawled away from battle to get back up. Ix was swinging and casting like a madman! (You gotta wonder about a cleric who wears a perpetually flaming feather in his helmet). After Ix and Co. mopped up their mess, they took off after the rest of the party. Catching up, they dispatched the remaining goblins who then lost morale and closed some double doors on them. I'm not sure about this, but I think we broke open those doors and killed the remaining goblins... oh, but not before some shaman put Flaine to sleep. Nice.
We killed off the rest and searched some more through the tunnels. Link discovered a collapsed tunnel. It looked like someone was trying to bore through to our side. Lock reaches in, grabs the hand and pulls him out. It's a human with barely a stitch on him! He was missing sixty-odd days ago according to our information. Apparently, he was sold as a slave to the goblins some weeks ago. He was in a holding cell and was burrowing his way out with a sharpened spoon when he ran into us. So we escorted him back up to the Church of Pelor, which, btw, the tied up dwarf ended up as well. After they returned, we found a passage leading to rough hewn stone tunnels with a definite negative grade. Great. Deeper means deadlier.
The tunnel branched out into three forks. Wonderful. Mondavi used the invisibility potion that we gave him last session to scout out ahead. (Mondavi threatened to goose Laurel while invisible which would have ruined his invisibility -- hence, he thought the better of it). Now here, John, our DM, made a small goof and never knew that Mondavi was invisible (I guess he didn't hear us) so he was putting out all these goblins down one corridor surrounding Mondavi and attacking him. Mondavi was in a state of shock as he couldn't believe these guys could detect invisibility. John later removed them after learning about the mistake. Mondavi failed a search check and informed the party that the coast was clear. Flaine will never trust that shyster again. Knowing it was safe, Flaine went traipsing down the central corridor at full speed hoping to quicken the pace as the party seemed slow and indecisive (cautious is another word one could use, I guess, in retrospect).
Well, here it comes... every known goblin came out of the woodwork. Every one of the three forks were filled with goblins, worgs, shamans, and other circus freaks. Welcome to the Circus of Death! I felt really bad about this because it was Flaine who ferretted out these creatures and put the party at mortal peril. Four of us went down, including myself (thanks to a sleep spell cast by one of the shamans). Ix had his back against the cavern wall, smiting the foes as best he could. It was nearly a TPK (Total Party Kill). Finally, some headway was made as Ix healed Lock and went to town on the goblins. I remember Pelor helping out Ix in some minor way when he called on him for aid. Ix seemed to glow for a time, filled with the holy might of The Shining One. Lock went into a rage and goblins started flying in all directions from his two weapons (this is still the 1.0 version). Laurel breathed lightning twice down the cavern, eliminating her fair share of miscreants. Avenal stayed behind, sniping goblins with his longbow. Link and Mishka were keeping the flank clear with their complimentary attacks. Face it, that celestial leopard makes a difference any way you slice it. I think in real time, that battle took nearly 3 hours to resolve. And at that time it was getting close to the Customer Appreciation Day fiesta at Hobbytown USA which John and Audrey were hosting. Btw, Mondavi had for the whole day been trying to use this 'customer appreciation' to his advantage, asking for help and favors as well as 'combat mercy' during the game. Of course, this all fell on deaf ears, much to Mondavi's dismay.
So, we called a break and some of us ended up at Hobbytown USA to eat, drink and be merry. A word must be said here for the kindness of Mike and his wife (whose name I have forgotten, sorry) who fed us until we were stuffed and watched the players' children during the game. This was much appreciated and I hope to play there again as the atmosphere was very relaxed and the sunroom was a refreshing place to play a roleplaying game. I am sure all of our hats go off to Mike C. and his significant other (I will edit this later on once I remember her name, I promise). So I paced around Hobbytown for a few hours eating this pink paste called salmon mousse. Ughh. I will say that it seemed to me that the fiesta was a success considering the largest number of people I have seen in that shop. I dunno if it broke any records, but if it didn't, I'm sure it came close.
After that, we reconvened at John Peterson's place to continue our dismal quest. Btw, we won that goblin battle just barely. We healed the injured and went back up to the surface to buy equipment, ready spells, and advance in levels. Most everyone went up a level. Flaine was now 4th level, as was Laurel. I can't remember where everyone else ended up.
At this reconvention, Skip had to leave, so Mondavi was out. Ken wanted to make it, so he had John H. play his character in absentia. So Gin was in (kind of). Qurynack Lock was revamped to version 2.0 thanks to help from Mike and John H. So, instead of wielding two greatswords, he was now wielding a huge sized fullblade. Pelor help us all!
We went back into the ruins under Orak's bathhouse and went to the three-way forked tunnel. We searched out the central and rightmost tunnels only to find some hobgoblins, a couple shocker lizards and some weak treasure. Not much else. However, the left tunnel led to a huge chasm beyond which was a room manned by a large scorpion, a bugbear who suddenly turned into a gaseous form and left, and a couple of goblin shamans. This battle was congested and lengthy. We finally got rid of them, but it took a while. We searched the remainder of the level and we decided it might be better to return to town and refresh ourselves before we advance further, especially after that battle.
To make a long story short... we came back to the tunnels again and this time, Laurel felt a presence behind her. She whirled around to find a vampiric bugbear trying to hypnotize her. Being an elf, the attempt failed. However, the party attacked the foul beast only to see him turn to gaseous form again and spirit away. Ix kicked himself for not turning the beast while he had the chance. But soon, that chance returned. This time I was the victim, being I was in the back of the party. Ix not only turned this sucker, he consigned him to the deepest pits of the Abyss, turning his unholy form to ash! Looks liked we kicked some ash! (sorry...)
We investigated the rest of the complex, found some hefty treasure and returned topside to spend gold and celebrate our success.

THE END (finally...)

"Follow The Game That Failed..."

2006-05-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

It was a great Kingdoms of Kalamar game we Olivehurst Boyz had on May 13th. As in there wasn't one. At least Dean and Glen had the courtesy of letting me know ahead of time that they wouldn't make it. Seth, however, had no excuse. I tried to get a hold of him all day with no luck. I guess he was out of range or his phone was off. Willie showed up and we played a few hands of Magic: The Gathering then we got on Mike's X-Box and played Halo 2 for 4+ hours! We were playing the cooperative campaign and made it to the point where you play arbiters of the Covenant. Mike said by the time we called it a day that we were halfway through the single-player campaign. Wow. We must have kicked ass! After Willie had to leave (something about a boxing match he had to watch), Mike and I broke out Mom's Ronrico white rum and started playing Carcassonne for shots. Mike had never played before, so he got soused. Our rules were thus: Your opponent drinks one shot for every meeple you get back after a successful score. Of course, we soon amended it to: score must be at least 4 points to qualify for a shot. That way Mike had a semi-decent chance of staying sober through one game. Mikey, I think he likes it! The game that is, though the rum probably helped. It came out pretty even. Mike beat me on his first game as far as points (the farmers kicked down at the end) but we were even with shots. I think we had six each. So now I got my Mom and Mike hooked on Carcassonne! Yes!! Glen likes it, too, judging from the last time we played, so progress is being made toward total ludographic supremacy.
We played Settlers of Catan the next day (Mother's Day) and Mike was not impressed (probably because no alcohol was involved). He said he liked Carcassonne better because there was less downtime. My mom agreed. Oh well, can't win 'em all....
We played another game of Carcassonne after Settlers and, this time, we added the Inns & Cathedrals expansion set (along with The River I). It was quite interesting. I used my big meeple to good effect as I blocked off my mom (regrettably) from making any points on her road. I tried to do the same for a field against Mike, but it ended up getting shared as he had two meeples in the same field. Mom lost out on mega points because her unfinished megalopolis had a cathedral in it. I won that game, with Mike a close second. Mom refused to play again... (but we ended up playing another round anyway, go figure).

But, man, I was so looking forward to this D&D game. It was a shame that it didn't materialize. But this is to be expected when the sun starts coming out from its long hiatus behind the clouds. We had a long, wet winter this year and everyone is chomping at the bit to get outside and do something. I can't blame them, why would I? The next game, however, won't be until the middle of June because 1) I have a D&D game on the 20th in Tracy. 2) The week after that, Mike and I will be at KublaCon. 3) June 3rd I promised a friend that I would show up at her wedding. So, there ya go.
Until next time...

Going Aeropostale

2006-05-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

Now that my mind has somewhat recovered from the reeling nightmare of the past week, I think I can begin to relate the tale I have to tell....
I did a contract job for Vision Point-Of-Sale this past Thursday. I was supposed to meet another tech at the Aeropostale store in the West Valley Mall in Tracy at 6 am and then go in and replace three registers. I recieved the instructions via e-mail and it seemed simple enough. After all, I've done this stuff a hundred times before during my stint with Rite Aid. So far - so good.
Well, I get there 15 minutes early. I break out the brand new cell-phone I bought the day before just for this occasion, because God knows I can't afford to have one, and call my boss to let him know I'm there.
Ten minutes later my partner shows up. I will call him Juan. Juan is much older than me and rather sheepish. He's not very sociable, but he warms up later on that day. I take command and try to get the mall guard to open up the double doors. Eventually, we get in. We're now ten minutes late.
Now, this job was slated for 6 am to 10. A four hour job at $19/hr. After the bits I bought for the drill I had to borrow from my roommate, and the cell phone, and a screwdriver set (all my tools I had at Rite Aid was company property), that meant I was working for free.
But I gave my word that I would be there, so what can I say? Stupid, chivalric honor still has its adherents in this day and age.
Well, as I'm sure you're expecting, nothing went right. The registers had certain marked differences from the photos we have in our booklets. So we ate up some time figuring out what to do with the crossbeam (turned out we just crowbarred it the hell outta there). Then we stripped my cheapo #2 square bit. Thank goodness I had a carbide tipped one in my stash or else we were sunk. Now, our instructions said to bring a drill of more than 14 volts. Juan brought a 14.4 V Skil, I borrowed my friend's 18 V Ryobi. Both were battery powered. MISTAKE! I figured I had enough juice for four hours. Hell, after putting a 1-inch auger bit on it I couldn't make it drill one frickin' hole! The drill starting smoking and I pulled it out hoping I didn't owe my roommate a power tool. Juan's had the same result sans smoke, he was smart enough to get the drill out of there before that happy occasion. We were pissed off and exasperated. I then called out boss and let him know what the situation was.
"Mr. Baron, we have an issue here." I reported.
"I don't need to hear that." My boss replied.
"I understand, sir. But our drills, which conform to the specs given in our instructions, were not powerful enough to handle a one-inch auger bit."
"Well, can't you get to a hardware store around there and rent a drill?"
"Uhhhh. Yeah. I guess I can. I don't know if--"
"Look, we're in deep as it is! We don't need to be rubbing salt in the wound, you know?"
"Yessir. I'll get this done no matter what."
"Good. Thank you. Bye."
So I told Juan to hold the fort while I went out to find who the hell rents drills in Tracy. First stop was Home Depot. They said I had to go to Ace Hardware on Eleventh and Tracy Blvd. That was clear across town! Okay, so I get there and all they had was this hammer drill (but at least it was electric). I pay the $15 for the one day rental and I figure I might as well stop by Jack in the Box and grab a couple Cokes for Juan and I since it was already NOON! I figured, after getting the drinks, that Juan had done nothing during my absence and we would be racing to get the second register done. Turned out that he almost had the second register going by the time I got back! (Okay, now I was beginning to think maybe I was the problem here). The drill worked beautifully but it was too big to fit in the box. Great. So I drilled slanted holes. Who cares? The holes are for venting anyway. So I drilled 11 holes per register. Btw, our instructions said that two templates for the holes would be shipped in the Register #1 box. Surprise! It wasn't there. Good thing Juan brought his tape measure. It didn't help that after we replaced their main CPU server that our register tests didn't work due to bad connectivity. That slowed us down even more. I called Aeropostale tech support and they got a tech there within the hour (wow!) and he swapped out the 3-Com hub and replaced it with an IBM switch. Now everything works! This is just like Rite Aid!
All this time, mind you, I got Juan telling me that he has Lou Gehrig's disease and the miracles of medical marijuana! I mean, he kept going with it. I kept working just so I didn't have to hear it anymore. I mean, I felt sorry for him and all, it's just that he kept going on about the THC regenerating his nerve endings and stuff and I just didn't want to talk about it. We were there to put together registers not to be friends. Sounds pretty harsh I know, but I'm sure you know where I'm coming from here. After we finally get the third register working, we discover that its cash drawer only opens halfway. I peer inside and notice it's bent on the inside due to shipping damage. Circus Fantasticus! So we give them back their old drawer. Voila! Works like a charm.
So now we have to pack away all the old registers and label them and all that crap. Turns out some thoughtful soul decided to throw away one of the cardboard lids to one of our boxes, not to mention some foam that was needed to cover the bottom. That improvised box Juan and I constructed looked like a Rubik's Cube designed for the fifth dimension, or maybe a badly damaged Borg vessel.
"Juan, I don't think UPS is gonna take this." I remarked sullenly.
"Trust me, they'll take it." he retorted.
(Brian gives a grim look and rolls his eyes)
Net result: 6 am to 4:30 pm. Boy, were they pissed! Needless to say, I didn't think they would pick me to do the Pleasanton job the next Monday, and due to the lack of phone calls today I would guess I was right.
It was not my intention to go long with this job, but what could I do? Once again, I was the victim of circumstance. That's okay. That job sucked anyway. I mean, the job wasn't anything I wasn't used to already, it just seemed that my immediate overlord -- er, I mean, supervisor seemed like a real jerk. I know it's not considered politic to badmouth your boss on a blog these days, but I really don't care. I'm not working for them again.
I dunno how I got talked into doing contract work anyway, it doesn't pay. I need a full-time job. But you gotta do what you can to survive....

What is D&D?

2006-05-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here listening to Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov. If you have never heard this piece I implore you to do so, else you are really missing out on something. It seems to be breaking my melancholia; so much so that I'm composing another blog. Oh no!

Anyway, on with the topic at hand: What is D&D? Now most people who read this blog would think this a rather silly topic and quite redundant. However, I'm gonna take a different tack with this query. Maybe I should rephrase the question to: When is D&D not D&D?
Case in point: My YC group or as we like to call ourselves "The Olivehurst Boyz" since all of us were raised in the Marysville suburb of Olivehurst, played a variant of D&D using the d20 system called Monte Cook's 'Arcana Unearthed' which later became Monte Cook's 'Arcana Evolved' after Wizards of the Coast had a hissy-fit with the previous title. (Gee, I wonder why?) Btw, as an aside, I hate the book 'Unearthed Arcana' more than I hated the original 1st edition book of the same title. It is a collection of munchkiniana (is that a word?) designed to rip the toupees off the heads of many a DM. I do not use it in my campaigns and I have refused to buy it. How do I know if I don't own one? I downloaded a .pdf of it and said to myself after perusing it, "I am not purchasing this piece of crap." There, you know my secret. Anyway, I digress...
Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved was a wildly divergent version of D&D, and in the minds of many who have played this game, it really stretches the boundary of what D&D is. I guess this would be a thematic question. You see, there were no dwarves and elves and halflings in Arcana Evolved. There were Litorians, Mojh, and Faen. These were not analogs with different names, mind you, these were actually different races. Litorians were bipedal lion-people, Mojh were half-dragons, but were not the same as the template, and the Faen were small elves, in fact, they had two subraces: Quickling and Loresong either of which could spin a chrysalis at 3rd level or higher, in place of getting a feat, and come out as a tiny Spryte with wings and all your gear mystically transformed to the correct size. And this is just a sampling. Giants ruled the lands that were formerly ruled by humans. These giants were nice guys and you could actually play them. Spells were different. I mean a whole different list. Not only did you have to worry about what level the spell was, now you had to find out if it was a Simple, Complex or Exotic spell. One could take a spell template to augment or concentrate on a specific genre of magic (Psionic mage, Elemental Mage, Hunter Mage, etc.). Then when the Arcana Evolved book came out (this was similiar to the 3.0 to 3.5 debacle. Basically, Monte Cook cursed Wizards for coming out with 3.5 so early and then he did the same damn thing and made the former Arcana Unearthed book irrelevant by coming out with his 'director's cut' Arcana Evolved book. Needless to say, I was a tad pissed, and it wasn't too long after that I gave up that campaign setting.), they added a new race, the Dracha (another half-dragon, but instead of the intelligent and bookwormy Mojh, they were more into the warlike aspect of the dragons), and they added evolved levels. And here's a kicker for ya: Rather than divide the book into a DM guide and a player's handbook, they put them both together in one volume, and then slapped a $49.95 sticker price on the sumbitch, and Malhavoc Press did this just a couple months after we all shelled out for our Arcana Unearthed books. Can I hear an amen? (crickets and chirps)....
But even during our stint with this campaign setting, many of my players said, "This isn't D&D" in fact one person said it was "bankrupt D&D". And I had to suffer through this for 8 long months. (When DM's ask, "What type of game do you guys want to play" there's a fundamental reason...). So we eventually quit it (after one night when I threw my books in exasperation and hid in the bathroom for half an hour due to my embarassment of blowing my cool so badly in front of my friends), and played Kingdoms of Kalamar (which conforms more to what D&D should be, I guess).
But that's the question, isn't it? What IS D&D?
What constitutes a D&D game as the players see it?
Another case in point: Audrey P. once told me in passing that she couldn't play in Eberron because it just didn't feel right. It didn't feel like classic D&D. Well, what is classic D&D?
I took a look at Eberron and saw what she was saying. Living constructs, halflings riding velociraptors, magical technology advanced to such a high degree that there were shuttles run by air elementals, telegraphs, airships, etc. I wouldn't say that this was as bad as Arcana Evolved, I mean all the main races were there with the addition of the warforged, the shifter, the shapechanger and all that, and only one added class: the artificer, but the world had just enough of a difference to call into question it's D&D status. I could see a person playing in this world and saying: "Well, it's not the D&D I know."
So what is?
Final example: Way back in 1992, I was playing 2nd edition D&D with the Olivehurst Boyz and it was a homebrew campaign called Syracuse. One day, a star fell into the bay just outside the port city of the same name and it caused a tsunami and washed out the dockyards and coastal shops. This played havoc with the city and the Lord of the City demanded an investigation. Well, no one stepped forward, so the party did. They found the 'star' that was now half-submerged in the bay. After describing it to them, some of them sighed. "What's the problem?" I asked. "Is it a spaceship?" Brent implored. "I dunno. Is it?" I replied cryptically. "Dammit. This isn't D&D! This is Gamma World!" "Well, Spelljammer has spaceships of a sort, and it's D&D." I responded. "Well, it's not REAL D&D." Brent concluded after downing his beer. They were further dismayed when inside the vessel, they found the exploded carcasses of beholder-kin and had to fight Xenomorphs (you know, aliens from the movie Alien and Aliens. And NO I did not mix beholder DNA with the Alien DNA in the offspring as that would have been overkill.... But it's a nice idea, hmmm?).
And so it goes. I seem to remember a module way back in the 80's called "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" in which the players actually investigated a crashed spaceship and got to mess around with laser pistols and such (with limited ammo, of course). And that was D&D, right? I mean you can't get much more D&Dish than 1st edition. Right?
So what's the answer?
I think for most people D&D has to pass the Tolkien test. Plain and simple.
Question 1: Is the physical technology medieval? I would say as long as the physical tech did not go past Renaissance, possibly primitive firearms, it should suffice. (for most people).
Question 2: Are there Tolkienesque races involved? i.e. elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. It isn't just are these races involved, but are they very similar in culture and lifestyle as those same races in Tolkien's books. I mean, an Athasian Elf is a far cry from the Noldor... but, this can come back to bite you. I mean, after all, does the halfling of 3.5 look anything like a hobbit? Hell, no! What about the gnomes? Gone are the big schnozolas. I hope there weren't e-mails saying that the 1st edition gnome was antisemitic?? When I think of a gnome, I think of that red-hat guy on the Travelocity commercials.... which is why I am appalled to see that in 3rd edition the gnome is taller than the halfling!! When will Wizards correct this? I am tearing my hair out!
Question 3: Is there magic? And how strong is it? I have a heavy preference for low-moderate magic worlds (much to the chagrin of my players). Some people don't mind and are truly excited by the advanced magic of Eberron and Forgotten Realms. Kingdoms of Kalamar is low-magic. Greyhawk is moderate-magic. Dark Sun was almost no magic with a heavy reliance on psionics which I think was a mistake, I think many people would consider Dark Sun to be 'not D&D' or at least pushing the boundary. Now this is a question that really fails the Tolkien test. I mean, how many times in all of his books, from The Valaquenta to Unfinished Tales did anyone cast a spell? I can count them on both my hands. And that covers the entire recorded history of Middle Earth! Magic was a very mysterious and subtle art in Tolkien's world. I doubt many players would have the patience for it. The closest thing to a fireball was when Gandalf called out fire from the trees of Hollin. That's it. But in Tolkien's world the wizards or Istari as they are known in Sindarin were really more like priests. They were Maiar serving as emissaries of the more powerful Valar on Middle Earth. So, their power came from the gods, not arcane symbols and proven methods. It's not Hogwart's.
So the Tolkien test doesn't really work, does it?
So where does that leave us? With a meme that is constantly evolving over time? Are we subconciously comparing it to the D&D we knew as kids, i.e. 1st edition?
It's all subjective anyway. One person may not care if it fits some eidolon of D&D as long as it's fun to play. And I guess I can put myself in that fair category. But I guess some people have a hankering to play a specific type of game and when that game is not what they had in mind, though it may share the same dubious name, then it sours them on the idea.
I guess, that's the best way I can put it.
Let me know what you think. Is this an issue worthy of consideration? Or totally irrelevant?

Deeper Means Deadlier

2006-05-08T16:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not getting this out in a timely manner, but my allergies kicked up this past Sunday and I have been fighting a severe bout of depression so I hope you all understand. Anyway....
May 6th we played another game of D&D at John and Audrey's. The size of the gang increased significantly this time. Gone were Sir Galotte the aasimar paladin and Mondavi the fire safety inspector (the paladin and rogue gone simultaneously?.....hmmm). In their places were Gin or Jin or Djinn however he spells his name, who is a human, twin bastard-sword wielding Quisanart; Arvenal? the elven ranger; and Ix (he says it's a short form of his actual name, I think his full name is Ixitxichitl), the cleric of Pelor (but not that kind of cleric). These were played by Ken C., Brian Q., and John H., respectively. The 'old hats' were Flaine, my human bard; Laurel, Audrey's drunken, female elf sorcerer with a penchant for deep blue eyeshadow; and Link, Mike's warforged scout archer with his chain-armored, celestial leopard (whose name I have forgotten for the sixth time).
The game took a while to get started because we had newcomers putting the finishing touches on their characters and we had to sell the loot we procured from the previous adventure. It was during that interlude that we met and roleplayed with the new characters and asked them to join our 'selfless' cause in rescuing the missing orphans.
Having cleared out the first level, we took the elevator room to the second level which we noticed was carved out of a darker rock - malachite, it turns out. Well, the Mystery of the Mace seems to be nearing completion! (See my previous post with the same pic if you're confused). Then Ix hammered a spike through the chains of the elevator to keep it from moving or at least letting us know at a distance if the elevator was in use. Then we found a secret door that had another lever in it to (hopefully) keep the elevator down while we were traipsing about in this deeper level. To further bolster this point, no pun intended, we wound the lever in silk rope and tied it down in the down position (adventurers are such prudent souls...). Then Flaine Gilgahar (that would be my bard) opened the door out of the elevator room and saw a quartet of hobgoblins that turned to notice me. One of them grunted something. Not knowing Undercommon or Goblin, I went erect and saluted like a Prussian Hussar, while summarily closing the door. The party groaned their dissatisfaction. Gin Tanqueray then opened the door and intimidated the hobgoblins to come into our room. After all four marched in, we demanded they tell us some information, but Ix could not contain his hatred for these foul creatures and started slicing with wild abandon (Laurel simultaneously started shooting magic missiles from her wand, as well). Combat!
Three were dead and one unconscious. Link says, "Let's bind this one and question him."
Gin says, "COUP DE GRACE!!"
Link says, "nevermind..."
Venturing further, we find an ogre with a large falchion. I don't remember much about this battle for some reason. But I think we killed him. I think his last words were, "Zo'molog, chop!"
Then as the party moved past a strange stalagmite, it animated into some weird golem and though it did some damage, we did destroy it.
Now we had a choice, a secret door to the right and a normal door to the left (gone are those pesky and atrocious gear doors of the gnomes - thank Pelor!). We decide to open the secret door and go in. Inside is apparently a temple or memorial of some kind. A great statue of Zenith Splintershield (some dwarf hero) and a statue of a xorn at each corner with flames erupting from their mouths providing illumination. Around the dwarf statue's legs was a wrapped, barbed chain. Well, the party inspects the chamber and spends an inordinate amount of time hemming and hawing which caused a group of four hobgoblins, two automatons (I think they were pulverizers) and a half-dwarf/half-troll, oh and let's top off this cavalcade of fun with an animated barbed chain, you know, the one wrapped around the dwarf's legs?
BEGIN THE MOTHER OF ALL BATTLES:
All I remember is blood, cussing and screaming. I remember "Get the hell outta here!" "We're in over our heads!" and someone cried "Daddy!" but I dunno who that could be.
I began to get visions from the movie Black Hawk Down.
I ran around with my much maligned and maltreated wand of cure light wounds, jabbing and prodding everyone I could to my deligh-- er um, to my great constipa-- er uh... consternation. (My bard has an issue with wands... I probably need to see a cleric of Pelor about that, I tried to see Ix about it but he grabbed his holy symbol and cried, "I'm not that kind of cleric!"). So anyway after the numbness of battle subsided, I noticed that Gin was down. I rushed over to cure him. He crawled over to the side of me, attacking the automaton while prone. Though the party tried to concentrate their firepower on the half-troll, we ultimately failed. The automaton struck me after I healed Gin and I was in a near coma on the floor.
I'm not sure how I came to, but I remember the secret door closing with a thud and our getting into the elevator and returning to town.
It was during this interim that we gained 3rd level. Or 2nd for the newbies or the warforged.
I played a few ditties at the Tipped Tankard Tavern for a few goldies. It was then that I gained my feat, Lingering Song. After getting a bit tipsy with Gin at the bar, we felt like we could take them on the next day.
THE NEXT DAY or 24 HOURS IS A LONG TIME:
We make our way back down the elevator and guess what? The hobgoblins built a barricade of stout wood and were firing arrows at us from behind it. (This battle reminded me of the Tantive IV sequence in Star Wars: Episode IV or the Rue de Clerguet scene in Les Miserables). I instantly began playing my masterwork mandolin to inspire courage in the party. Laurel opened her mouth, which was not unusual, but the electrical bolt that mouth let loose, was. Whether that was a spell or something to do with sorcerers being of the kin of dragons I don't know. Maybe if I had Knowledge (arcana) or something, I would. And coming in from behind the hobgoblins was another automaton. Oh goodie! Gin and Arvonal moved in to melee with the hobs, while Link and his cat were messing around with the automaton. In the end, all opponents were slain.
This time, we went to the normal wooden door to the left. This led to the chamber we affectionately call... The Crap Room. (I thought maybe this was a portal to the Demiplane of Crapola, but my character wouldn't know that...). Some artistic soul marked with genius decided to do something... I dunno... festive... with the excessive amout of excrement piled up in this room and shaped a kind of throne out of it. Oh boy! Who's gonna sit on that and crown himself king? Link had no compunction about going in there to search around. (I guess constructs are like that). He came out with a smelly wooden chest filled with copper and silver. Gin complained, "Man, that's some crappy treasure." (Ba-dum, bum, bum).
We then opened the secret door to the dwarf memorial to discover... that the room was empty and the chain was missing. We made our way beyond to the south and Arvenal nearly fell into a pit with poisoned spikes at the bottom. Gin helped him up and out of it. Gin then broke apart the wooden barricade the hobgoblins used earlier and made a makeshift bridge over the pit. Then Link nearly fell into another one nearby. Gin helped him out of it. We opened a couple rooms only to find another quartet of hobgoblins. After dispatching them easily enough, we found a lever that disabled one of the pit traps and then opened the double doors that led to the auction hall. Here, the half-troll/half-dwarf, the chain, a duergar and another four hobgoblins were selling the orphans. I think the duergar was the buyer. As soon as we opened the doors, a beholder teleported in and demanded one of the enslaved children and said he would return him to the orphanage. (Yeah, right! A good-aligned beholder. Now, I've seen everything). And then after he received the child, he teleported away. WTF?? I think the following dialogue took place like so...
Ix: "Give us the children!"
Duergar: "I've already paid for them. They're mine."
COMBAT!

BEGIN THE DAUGHTER OF ALL BATTLES:
I forgot to mention that the half-troll/half-dwarf had a pet howler with him.... sorry. So here we go again... I play a courageous ballad, Link lets his cat loose and fires his bow, Gin cries havoc and lets slip the bastards of war, Laurel uses her wand more than Harry Potter, Arvenal lets fly with his arrows, while Ix goes down in front of the howler. I stopped playing my mandolin and rushed over to jam him with the cure wand. He heals 7 hp. He gets up. Howler hits him on an attack of opportunity for 7 hp. Ix goes back down. (It reminded me of Dungeon Siege. Or maybe an old Yes song: I get uuuuuup. I get dowwwwwwnn). My wand had one charge left on it by the end of the battle. After dispatching all involved, including finally taking out the half-troll and Gin pouring oil all over him and igniting him, we approached the duergar. He demanded payment for the slaves we stole from him or else he would attack us. We were already pretty badly beat as it was. Laurel and Ix were adamant about not paying this low-life as that would, in principle, make us slavers as well. I could see it either way: either we save the children's lives now or we risk losing the children for honor's sake. Flaine is a little more pragmatic than that, I'll take the former option. Gin gave the duergar the money (450 gp) before we even reached a consensus. He took the cash and disappeared. Ix responded with a few expletives. Gin merely looked at Flaine and shrugged.
We took the children back to the Church of St. Cuthbert (because, Gin reminded us, that's where the money is). We were well rewarded by the clergy. Ix, Link and I visited the orphanage to see if the fourth child was sent there by the beholder. Evidently, he was, but not by the beholder; by a woman in black robes. And therein hangs a tale....
We went back down to clear out the lower level and rescue more slaves. We rescued another five or six slaves. We also found a treasure trove and a letter which the half-troll apparently gave no mind to and threw away. It was written by another villain I'm sure we'll have to deal with in the future. We go back up with the haul, and news of our exploits are described in the periodical, The Cauldron Bubble.
'Link's lads...." what am I? Chopped liver?
Oh, thank you citizen Fario Ellegoth for comparing us to the Stormblades! Hey alright! Now I bet we have to confront these bozos while we injure their pride.
Maybe our party needs some badass moniker. Like... The Order of the Blue Flaine. or The Wandjammers... or I dunno. We'll come up with something.
It was a very splendid game all told. I had fun. This game went to 9 hours instead of the 12 I'm used to. But, again, everyone had a great time and I look forward to continuing the quest on the 20th. See y'all there, ya hear?

P.S. Oops! I forgot to mention: John P. was kind enough to roast some wieners and hamburgers for us while we were there (not to mention the occasional microbrew) and Ken brought over his family recipe BBQ sauce that went very well with the burgers. I like sweet BBQ sauce, and I like the fact that even in this day and age tradition is not a creed outworn. Thanks to John and Audrey for the wonderful feast!

Not Such a Ra Deal

2006-05-01T20:37:00.000-07:00

I got to play some Ra last Friday with two Johns and an Audrey (that's the name of my next film). And I must say I was quite impressed with the game. The little scoring mats that John (not Peterson), the owner of the game, had run color copies of, turned out to be so essential to my understanding of the game that I was disappointed to discover that the game did not come with any such instructional device. From what I understand, one must visit a website and download them. That's cool. I can hang.
How to describe this game... I guess I can start by saying that it is a Reiner Knizia game, and that in it you bid for resources (monuments, pharaohs, Nile tiles, civilizations, gods and gold). These tiles are put out randomly in a continuum on the main playing mat (ma'at?). Of course, a person could invoke 'Ra!' instead of drawing a tile which would start the bidding process for the resources already in play, or one could draw a Ra tile which would force that player to invoke Ra and start the bidding. The bidding is done by sun tiles (they are wooden and aesthetically pleasing) numbered from 1 to 15 (I believe), the higher number having priority. There are many strategies one could employ just in the bidding process alone. But whoever wins the bid gets all the tiles on the ma'at (sorry, I can't quit). These tiles are then placed on the downloadable players scoring ma'at (I'll stop it, I promise!) and scored accordingly. Each type of resource has a special way of scoring, por ejemplo, you could have four Nile tiles, but they wouldn't score until you got at least one flood tile. This is consistent with Egyptian history in that the fertility of the Nile valley was wholly dependent on the periodic flooding of the Nile river. No flood.... no harvest... no life. Therefore (using the calculus), Flood = Life whereas using the Newton substitution, Flood = Nile, so Nile = Life which explains why the ancient Egyptians revered the Nile river so much in their mythology that it even gave life to the gods themselves. Sorry for the aside, but I was just emphasizing that there are some historic truths incorporated into this game. No, there is no West Nile virus tile in the game, thanks for asking...
But there are bad tiles that you do not want (Earthquake, Unrest, Famine, Funeral, etc) that can remove your tiles from your.... mat. Another example, you have three pharaohs and you win the bid. You gain a pharaoh, a couple Nile tiles, a monument and a Funeral. Now you remove the pharaoh you just gained and another one from your mat because a Funeral removes two pharaohs. See? However, you do not want to be caught with NO tiles on some of them as they will give you a stiff score penalty. For instance, if you have no civilization tiles at the end of an epoch then you lose 5 points, by having at least one on your mat you keep from losing points even if you don't gain any.
Epochs? You mentioned the end of an epoch? What's that about?
Well, there is a track located above the resource continuum that holds all the Ra tiles. If enough are picked (and that depends on the number of players) it ends the epoch and scoring begins. There can only be three epochs, then the scores are tallied. The one with the most victory points wins. Th'ankh' you. (Yeah, I know, that was a reach).
It's a good game. We were able to play two games that evening, one with three players and another with four and it took two hours all told. So even with the learning curve, they were quick games. I imagine with less advanced boardgamers it will take an hour longer. But like most games, once you learn it, it becomes a matter of mastering the strategy and not the rules. I would love to play it again.
I give this game 5 out of 5 ankhs.

Oh, one final thought: When a person invokes Ra, according to John (not Peterson, I think his last name is Hunter though I'm not sure. I'm bad with names), I am supposed to take the blue, wooden Ra piece and bellow forth in a firm and unflinching voice: "Raaaaaaa!" If I had known this was a roleplaying game I would have dressed up for the occasion, replete with kohl eyeliner, hook sceptre and golden false beard. So I do it. It's fun.
Then, in a later turn, Audrey sees there are tiles in the continuum she wants and grabs the Ra counter, "I do Ra." she announces.
...and lo, the populace thence assembled did chortle and guffaw.... (Book of the Dead, verse 322)
"You do Ra?" I asked her.
"Yes." she replied.
John and I sheepishly gave our sidelong glances to each other.
"Is that in the rules? Can you do Ra?" I asked.
"Why not?" John answered.
"Do you get any special benefits for doing Ra?" I continued.
"If you did, would you do Ra, Brian." John asked.
"Well.... it would depend on my point total." I replied.
"What?" John spat.
"Ra and I are very close." Audrey opined.
"Yeah. I bet." I said.

This only confirms what I have already known for a long while: Ra is an Egyptian god with the head of an eagle and the body of a well proportioned muscular male. You see, looks doesn't really matter with women... it's what lies beneath... as in look further down... or as Pharaoh Amenhotep III so eloquently put it, "It's not so much the headdress as the sceptre." Got it? Good.
Audrey didn't win either game, so I guess Ra is quite a fickle god.
Looks like I'll have to end this blog with a 50's style rock ending...

a - doo Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!

One DM's Deleterious Circumstance

2006-05-01T12:05:00.000-07:00

I had my game this past Saturday (Kingdoms of Kalamar 3.5) at Yuba City (Session #12), and I have to say I wasn't too impressed. Oh, the roleplaying was better than usual, but I was victim to the oldest trick in the book: Players who don't take the adventure hook (the bait).
You see, my game opened up with a bang. Last session, our fighter/wizard, Lazarus the Undying... died. A trio of trolls jumped the party while they were camping outside (there were three PC's in the party at the time and the average level was 6th), and though two were able to escape their clutches, Lazarus ended up in a crossfire of four claws, two bites and an evil rend! Sadly, and predictably, he didn't make it. Thus ended that session (#11)...
This latest game, we started the next morning after Lazarus' untimely demise. They picked through the remains to retrieve what possessions had survived the onslaught. They were resolved to journey north back to the city of Inolen, but at that moment a band of five rangers approached the party (one of them was Willie's new character (originally (maybe not so originally) named Lazarus but I forced him to change it. He chose Jules Ingamin, a 4th level fighter/ 1st level wizard). These rangers were after the trolls (as they were their favored enemies) and they were a day behind. After expressing their sorrow to the party for not being here soon enough to confront the trolls before their companion (Lazarus) died, a great shadow swallowed up both parties and WUMP! A gargantuan red dragon LANDED on the ranger party from above. The PC's made their Spot and Listen rolls and so avoided the 15 ton creature's surprise entrance. So did Jules, but the NPC rangers didn't (of course!), the dragon then ran away from the party where a tall githyanki with a silver sword leaped onto the dragon's leg and climbed onto his back while the dragon took off again toward the Elenon mountains to the east.
Needless the say, the party was a little shell-shocked. (Brian doesn't do this in his campaigns!) I have to admit, Willie roleplayed Jules' attitude quite well. He was distraught at the sudden and needless deaths of his childhood friends. After building a stone cairn for the fallen (which Dean's character Ariel (a female half-elf ranger/sorcerer), and Seth's character Nash (a male halfling rogue/warlock) helped him to complete, Jules then made a Knowledge (the planes) roll regarding the githyanki he saw and scored a 26! I told him some basic info on the githyanki plus the fact that Ariel was wearing a githmake bastard sword across her back sans scabbard. Jules knew that the githyanki cared more for their weapons and armor than they did for their own mates, so he confronted Ariel about getting rid of her sword lest it attract more githyanki.

I have to insert an aside here: Willie (Jules' player) is old school. When he thinks githyanki, he's thinking about the cover of the 1st edition Fiend Folio, so he assumed that these githmake weapons were trans-dimensional beacons putting out an APB. I never told him that, but that's what he interpreted. This, of course, started a two-hour long argument. While Ariel was mostly in character during this argument, Jules lapsed in and out of the game talking to Ariel and Dean every other sentence. I finally had to end it and ameliorate both sides as best I could to maintain a viable gaming environment. Eventually, Ariel agreed to find a scabbard for the weapon as soon as they reach a village. This solution seemed to satisfy all involved. The bottom line here was I thought Willie was trying to prove to me that he could play a 'good' aligned character (because he rarely does, and we had a discussion last game because I thought his character (Lazarus) was Neutral Evil even though it said Neutral on his character sheet. Though Willie proved to me that his character had never DONE anything evil, I was more into his intent than his actions, but anyway), coupled with the fact that the whole githmake weapon thing wasn't even a moral issue to begin with, made this event needless and tedious. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if Willie didn't take the argument out of character as often as he did. There -- I'm done with that aside, now.

Since Jules is from the kingdom of Mendarn to the south, where the anti-demihuman racism is a bit less, the party decides to go back to his home city of Ospolen (which is the capital of Mendarn). At this point, I mentioned to Nash that his riding dog was acting up. He seemed to be frightened of the troll cave to the east. This was the same cave the githyanki left to leap on the dragon. Nash and Ariel decided to investigate. Jules stayed behind to wish his friends farewell. Ariel and Nash discovered the slaughtered remains of three trolls. One was very dead, while the other two were down, but regenerating. Ariel ignited her githmake bastard sword (with a Burning Blades spell) and performed coups de grace on both of them. They noticed also the remains of Lazarus and near him a shattered githyanki device (this device was well known to the party. They found it off a low-level githyanki scout. It was a large, glass vessel and if you broke it, a githyanki hero would arrive and plane-shift the scout back to their astral fortress). Near the shattered glass was a shimmering warp in the air in a flat, roundish shape. They knew damn well it was a dimensional portal.

Aside #2: Now we come to it. This was the hook... the bait... the entrance into the two-week slaving of the DM's convoluted imagination. My adventure for tonight! Did it ever occur to the DM that there was NO FUCKING WAY anyone with a modicum of common freakin' sense was going to enter that portal? I dare say not. I mean, this is the DM's basic death trap setup right? Enter portal, make saving throw, begin to die. Right? OR "You enter the shimmering pool of air and arrive on the other side inside a great feast hall where the KING OF ALL GITH is holding a meeting of his top generals and advisors. The portal closes behind you inexplicably. Now fight these twenty-five top-level githyanki all armed with silver swords and pumped so full of psionic goodness that you will be long remembered as THE GUY WHO LEFT AND NEVER CAME BACK!" Now I would never do anything remotely like that, but I guess I have a history...
Here's the conversation that occurred after the game:
Brian (Darth_Tanyan): I can't understand why you guys didn't go into the portal back in the cave?
Dean: You....don't....understand?
Brian: Yeah.
Dean: Brian, the last time I went through one of your portals I ended up in the Elemental Plane of Earth. Thank God it was somewhat muddy so I could reach my rod of passage or Torseti and I would've been dead. Remember that?
Brian: I gave you a clue, dummy. You asked me what color the portal was and I said shit-brown. Now why do you think I used those words?
Seth: Brian told me months later that that was the Quasi-Para-Semi-Elemental Plane of Fecal Matter.
Brian: No, actually it was the Demiplane of Crapola.
Dean: It was what??
Seth: Remember Brian remarked on how smelly you guys were when you came back?
Dean: Mud can be smelly.
Brian: Shit.... brown.
Dean: Screw you, Brian. You suck! Dammit, you had me make Constitution checks for swallowing that shit.
Brian: Yep.
Dean: And you still can't understand why we're a little hesitant to jump through portals?
Brian (looking disconsolate): Oh. I get it.
Seth, Willie and Dean (exultant): Yeah!!
Brian: Wait a minute, that was over five years ago, dude. I've had portals since then. Remember the portal in your castle in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed?
Seth: You mean the blue one?
Brian: Right.
Willie: Correct me if I'm wrong, junior, but didn't we find out that that gate was looking for a necromancer and it would close if one went through?
Dean: Yeah, it was looking for a necromancer.
Brian: So what?
Dean: Who the hell wants to go through a portal that is LOOKING to snag a necro? What might be lurking on the other side? Hell? The Abyss? Some vengeful angel or paladin of significantly high level?
Brian: You guys used the akashic memory and discovered the name of the sorcerer who made the portal.
Seth: Wasn't it Thomas Jefferson or something?
Willie: It was Jefferson Davis.
Dean (rolling his eyes): Jeezus, gimme a break.
Seth: I've heard that name before....
Dean: He was the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Brian: Hey, that was a cool world, man. The Colonies of Columbia versus the Confederacy of Dixie in 1858. Instead of black slaves there were Whitney Golems picking and combing out the cotton. Jefferson Davis was the Grand Wizard of Dixie and he was losing the war and needed to find a necromancer to help animate his dead confederates and have them march to the District of Columbia. Also, Pittsburgh was a nexus to Phyrexia (from Magic: The Gathering) where they would construct strange arcane steamcraft devices, like colossi and defilers and such...
Dean: Omigod, this blows. You actually wanted us to visit this place?
Seth: Sounds cool.
Dean: Shutup suckup!
Willie: Didn't you tell us that their guns were just wands with pistol grips and you had to sprinkle them with pixie dust to get them to ignite or something?
Seth: Are you kidding me? Ha-ha-ha-ha! That's the gayest thing I ever heard!
Brian (slamming books on the floor): Alright! That does it. You assholes wanna come up with something better? You wanna DM? Get your asses into this chair and start rollin' dice! Otherwise grab your stylus and your dice and prepare to be dismayed. I do not have the time nor the inclination to babysit your candy-asses through an adventure when all you had to do was go through the stupid portal!
Willie: Honestly, why are you getting all upset? It's just a game. We're here to have fun, right?
Brian (quieting down): Yes, but not at anyone's expense....and certainly not mine.
Seth: Okay, we're cool. Let's get back to my character...
General silence. (crickets and chirps)
Dean: You know, you could package that Civil War campaign for Wizards of the Coast, Brian. You could call it, Dixie Guns and Pixie Dust!
Willie: Nah! Call it Dixie Chicks and Pixie Sticks!
Willie, Seth, Dean: Guffaw!!!

Suffice to say, getting me pissed off at the D&D games has turned into a spectator sport.

Sooooo, The party looked at the portal in fear and awe and made their way back out of the cave and back to Jules where they decided to journey south to Ospolen. So they travel south, hoping to find the gnoll bandits they were commissioned to find by the Duke Davrosil of Inolen last session. Well, they don't find the gnolls, but they cross the Eldoran/Mendarn border, making it to Ospolen 4 days later.
At this point, I was no longer running a programmed adventure created by yours truly, now I was in 'wing it and sling it' mode. I had the clerics of the Riftmaster charge Ariel (a devout worshipper) to quiet an influx of magic just outside the city in a nearby village. This influx of magic was centered on a rival church devoted to the Lord of Scorn, god of hate and racism. They had captured two halflings and tomorrow, on the first quarter of the moon Diadolai, they intend to sacrifice them to their vicious god. The party's job was to break it up and kill all the priests and anyone who tried to protect them. So after doing some preliminary scout work they decided to attack the temple under cover of the evening fog (this village was near a bay). They all set up their places as the two halflings were about to be lynched outside the temple on the gallows in front of all the village. Over 80 people came out to watch and chant their rage. After the high priest in his golden regalia addressed the crowd with a hate speech he tried to hit the latch that would drop the noosed halfings. But Nash had sneaked in earlier and rigged the latch to stick. It was at that time that the party moved in. Jules shot an arrow into the high priest while Nash cast a darkness spell which enveloped the gallows. Ariel moved in with her flaming bastard sword and attacked an attendant priest. To make a long story short, the fight was going against them as the jackal-helmed, khopesh wielding fighters came out of the temple to defend the priests, the high priest summoned a bearded devil to tangle with the interlopers and it didn't help that Jules fumbled and pulled his shoulder muscle while drawing back his composite Strength longbow. Ariel and Jules absconded the premises while Nash shot a few more eldritch bolts before leaving himself as the bearded devil and some of the fighters began to take an interest in him on top of the first tier of the temple.
Thus ended the evening. I gave out 500 xp in roleplay.

I guess in the future I'll just have a portal open underneath them if I really need them to go somewhere.... oh well.

Monopoly Contest is Rigged!

2006-04-27T23:58:00.000-07:00

So while I was scheduling my games of Twilight Imperium 3rd edition and Nexus Ops for ConQuestSF 2006, I noticed a link to visit the Hasbro website to help their designers come up with new properties for their new edition of Monopoly to come out this year called Monopoly - Here and Now. This is supposed to deal with all the major population centers in the present day United States and have one monument per city shown on their respective property title deed.

So the contest gives you three choices per city... right.

You tell me which of these you would choose to represent a given city in America.

Ready?

San Francisco - The Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Ave., or Fisherman's Wharf?

Gimme a break! Who is NOT going to pick the Golden Gate? Sure enough, I vote for it and surprise! 80% voted for it. Circus Fantasticus! What else can fail to impress me today....

I know, let's try Las Vegas! -- The Las Vegas Strip, Tropicana Blvd., Hoover Dam?

Contest or joke? You decide!

It's gets better... get a load o'Phoenix -- Camelback Mtn., Copper Square, Desert Botanical Gardens. Now, talk about desperate! Phoenix is so devoid of modern wonders they had to scrape up this panoply of mediocrity. Camelback Mtn. got 78%. I never heard of it, I guess all the locals voted for it. Looks like a lump of orange rock to me.

Here's a puzzler even Klik and Klak from Car Talk would be hard pressed to solve: Seattle - Pioneer Square, Pike Place Market, or Puget Sound. Where the hell is the Space Needle you dopes! If you can add in the Gateway Arch for St. Louis (and that got a whopping 95% cuz what else can you name in St. Louis?) you can certainly make room for the Space Needle in Seattle. What about Mt. Ranier? You put in Brokeback, er excuse me, Camelback Mountain for Phoenix. Not exactly man-made is it? Hasbro is a confederacy of dimwits (you thought I was gonna say 'dunces' didn't ya?)

I'm glad I hate Monopoly. Because this so-called public constest is so Hasbro-ized it's sick. Hasbro is to gaming what Microsoft is to operating systems. The Borg!

Anyway, if you wanna waste your time at the Hasbro site, do me a favor and look at the votes then vote for the underdog at each city. That way their pre-made tokens and cards for the Golden Gate will either have to be trashed and reprinted as Fisherman's Wharf complete with reeking whiff of seafood (which can cost the company a pretty penny) or make up some prevarications about how the contest was 'broken' or sabotaged by 'hackers', or they'll simply fudge the numbers to reflect what their ad agency already calculated last August during the company's 'creativity' session.

Think I'll play some Nexus Ops, instead.... (oops, that's Avalon Hill/Wizards of the Coast/Milton Bradley/Hasbro Inc.)

Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble...

2006-04-22T23:54:00.000-07:00

I did something today I haven't done in a long, long time.

I played (not DM'ed) a game of Dungeons & Dragons (version 3.5). I played a first level human bard named Flaine Gilgahar (master of the mandolin) and within the course of the game, reached almost to the third level that same 12-hour session, which is quite reasonable.

John Peterson was the DM/host and together with his lovely wife, Audrey, they lavished heaps of food and drink to keep all six of us happy.

I am bad with names as you may well remember, so to eliminate embarassment I will refer to the party by their characters' names. We had a warforged scout (3' tall), Link, who is an investigator for the city of Cauldron with his celestial leopard companion; Laurel, an elven sorcerer from a prominent family within the same city; Montavi, a rogueish rascal who fronts as a fire safety inspector within Cauldron; Sir Galotte, an aasimar paladin who serves Heironeious; and myself.

We were investigating some strange kidnappings going on in Cauldron. My bard, Flaine, was 'not from around here' and therefore didn't have the edge that most of the others had on inside information, but it made for good roleplaying as I blundered my way about the city. It eventually, after four hours of picking up clues and interviewing subjects, turned into a dungeon crawl after we found the gnome who made all the masterwork locks which all the kidnapped people were using to lock their domiciles, thanks to a cryptic clue told to us by the clergy of St. Cuthbert. After my bard picked up some hints from the gnome locksmith that not all was as it seemed, that he might be in danger, we quickly left his shop and tried to see what might be threatening the gnome upstairs. Just as Mondavi was climbing onto the gnome's shop trying to peek into the second-story window, Sir Galotte shows up and berates us for having the audacity to break into a shop in broad daylight! We explain the situation to him, that there are four orphan children that have been kidnapped and it would behoove him to aid us. He quickly agrees and we then barge into the shop (once more with feeling) find the place empty then go past his curtains to fight a strange demonic creature called a Skulk. As the night progressed, it became evident that the paladin was becoming a 'skulk magnet'. We then cleverly put Link's celestial leopard in front of the party to allay that circumstance. By the end of the night, we had just cleared (almost) the entire first level of the lost gnome city of Jzanidun. We fought off the depradations of: many skulks, a medium-sized monstrous spider, a choker, a grell, a mimic, a ragymuffyn, and lots and lots of traps! Not to mention a convoluted snake of a dungeon! I mean, I have never been involved in a D&D game where even with the Master Map at our fingertips, we still had trouble navigating about the place. I'm still wondering why this was the case, but I think the gnomish joke keys had a lot to do with it. We also encoutered our fair share of lame illusions as well.

Truth be told, I had more fun playing this session than I ever had in recent memory. I hardly knew that twelve hours had elapsed. In most games that I have played in, I am either bored to tears or upset with the rules structure or something just doesn't feel right. But this game was different. What can I say? I had fun, and it certainly seemed that everyone else did as well.

Looking forward to the next game. Now for some well-deserved sleep.

Puerto.... Ricoooo.... Suave!

2006-04-22T01:05:00.000-07:00

I have finally played the game Puerto Rico!! Hoop, hoop, hoop!

(and I came in last place) But that's not the point!! I had fun and so did all the wonderful players who decided to expend their evening with me. Namely, Ken Campbell, John and Audrey Petersen (I hope I spelled their surname correctly) and yours truly - the man with a thousand monikers - me.

So how did it go? All I remember was Ken talking and children screaming. Honest. This is all my Pentium brain can recollect. I discovered that a certain tile called The Governor was passed around the table. Whoever was The Governor got to choose what he/she wanted to do first whether that was Prospector, Craftsman, Mayor, Settler, Trader or whatever. Each choice has a benefit that only helps the chooser, but everyone else gets to do the same thing (sans benefit) in clockwise order. For example, (and boy we could use one), John is the current Governor and chooses the Mayor card. The Mayor card allows him to get two settlers (one from the colony ship and another from the supply) while everyone else gets only one (from the ship). This really cuts the downtime drastically since everyone is actively participating in the game even though it is 'someone else's turn'. I noticed (since I came from this angle backwards) that Twilight Imperium 3rd edition stole this idea wholesale. TI also has what they call 'Strategy Cards' and are used the same exact way as Puerto Rico's, even putting bonus chits on the unchosen cards to make them more desirable for the next round. (And I thought FFG really had something there... sheesh). The only difference being that the TI strategy cards also have the Governor card or as they call it, the Initiative card, as a choosable card not passed around in a clockwise fashion. However, the Initiative card cannot be picked twice in a row by the same person to avoid the obvious 'broken' state that would arise from such munchkinly endeavors.

"Ay Caramba Senor Perez! All these rules makes my gato scratch himself and pour tequila all over his wounds! Why are we in Puerto Rico in the first place? What the hell are we doing there? I would say for a fiesta, but I don't remember strategy cards at the Casa de San Juan, I only remember margaritas y chicas en la playa!"

Ah, yes. Good question...

Well, perhaps I should have mentioned that this is not modern Puerto Rico, this is Puerto Rico during its Spanish colonization...say around the late 16th century. And the point of this illustrious and oft-worshiped game is... (get ready for it...) Get 100 victory points (VP's again?? It's a eurogame, shut up). OR Run out of colonists in the supply area (there are 75 of them -- and they are brown... so what can brown do for you?) OR take up all the space on your building squares OR take up all the plantation spots on your island. If any of these conditions are met, the game ends and everyone tallies up their victory points. He who hath the mosteth... winneth.

Even with four players, a busy shop and two rambunctious children shooting silly string in my eyes the game lasted for two hours. Not bad for such a strategy rich game. What I took away from it was the plethora of options a player has in accomplishing his/her goal. One game you could go for doubloons (cash), another time concentrate on selling tobacco or sugar. Next time you may want to go the quarry route and reduce the costs on all your buildings so you can build cheaper though not necessarily faster. It has a lot of angles to work out and that makes it a fun game as far as I'm concerned.

My verdict: I give Puerto Rico 5 out of 5 indigo barrels. Great game! Must play it again, soon.

"Ay Caramba Senor Per... ahem... Sacrebleu Monsieur Perez! I have heard terrible rumours that you have seen a coup d'etat in Carcassonne! Tell me, M. Perez, is this verite?"

Indeed. When I initially entered the Hobbytown USA establishment I was jonesing to play Carcassonne. I met two teenagers, Ben and.... man, I am bad with names. Anyway, and they had their grandmother with them and her name was Jean. Now, don't you laugh at this dammit! I thought it was cool to be playing this game with another family. If only all families were thus. For those with more than a passing knowledge of English, you might have noticed that the previous sentence was a fragment. That is true, but I did that purposefully in order to emphasize my point. Your internal moral dilemma can now end.

So Ben, that other dude, and Jean and I all played a two hour game (or 90 minutes) of Carcassonne. (I was in last place) But THAT'S NOT THE POINT! You know, sometimes I just play to play. Actually, considering I haven't won any of these games thus far... I guess I would have to. But the fun is in the trying. The measure of a man is not in reaching the top of the mountain, but in climbing it. Not in the destination, but on the road toward it.

Oh, who am I bullshitting? It sucks to lose.

"Toulouse? Did someone say Toulouse?"

Shutup and eat your Freedom Fries!

"Keep Spinning the Wheel, Eddie..."

2006-04-20T16:08:00.000-07:00

It was so nice of my employer-to-be to let me know that I didn't have the job one week beyond our interview. Thanks for telling me during the interview that I had it 'all wrapped up' and you would 'get back to me'. Thanks for letting me call you one week hence and discover that you had already found someone who lived in Modesto to take care of your job rather than my 'marathon' 30 mile commute. Thank you so much.
Back to square one.
Again.
So, what have we learned:
1) I don't care how much money you have saved up, don't leave a job unless you have another one lined up.
2) Either the current job outlook sucks OR I have skills that no one really wants.
3) I will have to be content to be discontent in life.
4) Long John Silvers is looking like a neat place to re-start my career.
5) If you want a decent job, apparently, Tracy is not the place to be.

Out.

There are no Carcasses in Carcassonne! (wait, there is one...)

2006-04-19T23:39:00.000-07:00

If I keep buying boardgames at this rate, I'll be broke by KublaCon.

I bought a new one today: Carcassonne! I will have to say one thing about euro-games, they're elegant. No masses of armies scrunched up at the border of some unpronouncable province ready to pounce upon the opponent with a flurry of die rolls that are as abstract as cubist art. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

The two games I have heard every boardgamer geek proclaim to the skies as 'god given'... actually, three games (so that we have a trinity, get it?) are Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and Puerto Rico. I finally own two of them. Puerto Rico is coming....

Let's take a look at Settlers vis-a-vis Carcassonne: They are both tile games in that the board game is made of tiles that change after each session. With Settlers these are hexagons, Carcassonne has square tiles. But Settlers has a locked game-field whereas the board in Carcassonne can go anywhere, much like dominoes. In fact, Carcassonne has many similarities with dominoes in that there is a kind of 'boneyard' where the tiles yet to be played reside. Each player draws one and must play it (or else discard it from the game if there is no way to play it - this situation is rare). Each square tile is animorphic, that is, they are made to fit together but only in certain ways. As each tile's four sides end in either a road, city or field the odds of finding one that fits in any given board setup is 100% in most cases. One gets the feeling that you're constructing a spontaneous jigsaw puzzle with the notable exception that you have a stake in how the board ends up. You see, you have 8 followers. These are wooden stylized men painted in one of five colors (red, yellow, green, blue and black. They add grey in the Inns & Cathedrals expansion set which I will get into later). And after you place your tile on the table, connecting to another tile already in play you can place one of your followers on the tile you just laid. Now if this follower is in a city segment, it's a knight; if it's on a road, it's a thief; and if it's in a field, it's a farmer. However, if you have a follower in a cloister, then it's a monk. This nomenclature is really academic and serves to only add immersion factor to the 'medieval' theme the game evokes. The important thing to note is if a city, road or cloister is 'completed' - i.e. the surrounding tiles create a finished, whole city, for example, then the follower is put back into your supply and you are awarded victory points. Cities can be the biggest scorers with cloisters coming in second. Roads are the real wild card as their length determines their victory point worth, so it behooves one to make as long a road as possible if you have a thief on that road.

If you are confused with what I typed above, then you are a normal person. We boardgame geeks get a little 'into it'. As with most games, it is easier to learn the rules by playing the game with experienced persons rather than reading some yahoo's rendition of the rules. Be that as it may, the rules are quite simple and guess what? No dice! This is really a fun game with the only random factor being which tile you happened to draw.

My version of Carcassonne has a set of 12 river tiles added as a 'free expansion'. I have played with the river tiles and I really don't understand why one would use them. I saw no difference in game play except that the board looks cooler when 'A River Runs Through It'.

Sorry.... I thought that was funny. Guess not.

Settlers of Catan had me hooked (what am I saying? It still does!). As my previous post can attest, I even bought the computer game to bone up on my Catan mad skillz. I tried desperately to get my family to play this game (even bought the 5-6 player expansion set just in case) and again, I might as well have had Roy Batty stick his replicant thumbs through my eyeballs while I recite the mantra of 'Brick and Lumber make a Road' over and over while three monkeys from Java stick a white-hot poker up my kiester while simultaneously summoning Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, to slice my throat and send me down his barber chair chute to be the mystery meat in the next pot pie he makes for public consumption, rather than have ANYONE play a GAME of ANYTHING with me. Was I a tad harsh? Nah...

Actually, my cousins played a couple games of Munchkin with me, so that was cool. Especially when I won both games.

Anyway, the point is, I didn't play it this past Easter weekend. But! I did play it with a woman named Audrey and a couple of teenagers at Hobbytown USA this past Friday. Now, as a preface I should say that this Audrey was the same person who recommended this game to me. I should also note that this same Audrey RESOUNDINGLY KICKED MY ASS at Settlers of Catan.

Twice.

This is what I get for listening to 'recommendations'. This is like going into a chess store and having Gary Kasparov recommend the 'Naploeon Set' and then when he offers to play a game with you he mates you in twelve. Gee, I feel better about this $220 purchase. Thanks Gary!

Thanks Audrey!

Of course, this is all comic hyperbole. I enjoyed the game and the chance to finally play it with human beings. My errors were in initial placement. Something that will be certainly corrected at our next meeting.

But in Settlers of Catan, there are a pair of six-sided dice which determine which hex tiles produce resources (wool, brick, lumber, ore and grain) also known as (sheep, clay, wood, mines, and wheat). Don't ask me why people do this. I said DON'T! And those resources are used to build roads, settlements and cities. These, in turn, award victory points (there's that dreaded euro-game element again). Ten victory points is Victory! The game is one of probabilities and odds. As any craps player can tell you, the two dice produce a bell curve with 2 and 12 having one possibility in 36 and a 7 having a hefty 6 chances in 36. To further make this basic statistic plain to even the most mathematically inept player, the makers of the game have made the 6 and 8 bright red in color. These numbered tiles are placed on the hex tiles during board setup in a set sequence (the number tiles have letters on them and you place them in alphabetical order counter-clockwise on the hex tiles). Now each different hexagon (hills, mountains, fields, pastures and forests) has a probability attached to it as to how often that hex will produce the given resource. Got it? Good. Being that each player starts with two settlements and two roads, and each settlement is worth 1 victory point each, that means each player needs to accumulate only 8 more to win. There are no battles or skirmishes in Settlers of Catan. The closest thing to anything resembling combat is the Largest Army card which grants you 2 victory points.

So, how do these games rank against each other - or even objectively?

I would have to give Settlers of Catan 5 of out of 5 meeples. It has good replay value, little to no downtime due to the extensive trading going on between players even when it's not their turn. No sleepytime here, bucko! You snooze, you lose. Not to mention the savvyness of being shrewd on trading and being stalwart on your choices. Wavering in your plans can get you in last place pretty easy.

Carcassonne... I give it 5 out of 5 meeples as well. It also has superb replay value. Downtime is not a factor of constant interaction as it is in Settlers, but the turns are so fast plus you do have a say in where others' tiles may end up that it would behoove you to pay attention during an opponent's turn. (I mean, why would you not? If your TV is on during a boardgame, I would recommend turning it off. I mean completely off. Unplug it and chuck it out the plate-glass window. Please).

Hope this helped. Next time, I'll deal with the Inns & Cathedrals expansion for Carcassonne and the 5-6 player expansion for Settlers of Catan.

Settlers of Catharsis

2006-04-13T01:54:00.000-07:00

Yo Yo Yo, what's the dealio?

I'll tell ya...
Earlier today, after I received word that I actually have a job (hooray!) working for Ross Perot, I celebrated by going to Hobbytown USA in my hometown of Tracy, CA and purchasing a boardgame, because that's my current addiction and getting a job gave me an excuse to spend more money uselessly. What game to get?
I told the lady who owns the shop that I had heard a lot about Settlers of Catan, but the box looked lame and the pieces looked gay. How can this game be as fun as people suggest? I was stuck between Power Grid, Settlers of Catan and Ra. She said without a flinch, in fact, before I could finish my question, Settlers of Catan.
After her lengthy and excited explanation of the game I decided - what the hell - why not? (She also recommended Carcassonne and Puerto Rico but I only had enough for one game). So I shelled out the $36 for the game (I know, I could have got it $10 cheaper at TimeWellSpent.com, but I like to support my local game outlet - call me stupid). So I bring it home, tear it apart, set up the game and read the rules. Easy to understand rules booklet, nice 'almanac' actually it's a glossary of terms. Simple yet complex, the way I like my games. So far so good. But guess what? It comes with a free trial version of Catan: The Computer Game!
Now, for a person that has to bribe his friends to play boardgames with drugs and alcohol, playing on the internet sounded like the fix I had been looking for. What better way to learn the game! So I install it. No prob. Except that you can only play it for an hour (which is basically one game). Damn! It was so addicting! How much is the full version? $29.95! After hemming and hawing I finally give in and pay the exorbitant fee. I rationalize it by thinking, "Hey, it's half what you pay for a video game these days, right?" Now, I can play against AI and other players across the world. Awesome! So, I go to MSN games which is hosting Catan, and guess what? I have to pay ANOTHER $10/year to play! Ridiculoso! I have been raped by the Catan Robber!
What a racket.
Well I hope Herr Tauber is enjoying his life designing his new games under the Tuscan sun because I sure helped him to live it.
I love the game. I just think this bandwagon is getting a bit out of control. Much like Magic: The Gathering did (much to its detriment, and that was another good game). So that was it.
My vent on a soapbox.
Anybody else get burned on this? Lemme know... we can commiserate.
Oh, on a side note: As I was setting up the game, my roommate (a Hungarian lass my age) noticed the game and asked a few questions about it. After hearing my half-ass rendition of the basic idea of the game she chimed with, "Oh, so it's like Monopoly?"
Grrrrrrrrrrr......
Here's the kicker: My other roommate (a nice older lady who works as an RN at a local hospital) also noticed the game an hour later. She asked about the game. I told her. She gave forth a comment: "So it's like Monopoly." I grimaced, showed her the Development Card labelled 'Monopoly' and said, "Yeah. You got it." Sometimes I can take only so much... Forgive me.

What?

2006-04-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

Two posts on the same day? Darth_Tanyan, you madman!
Keep your bloggin' hat on Dear Reader, I merely wanted to tell you about my THREE DAY LANPARTY at my friend Dean's place.
From Friday to Sunday, SuNdAY, SUNDAY!!!
I brought my computer down and Dean and his son, Wyatt, already had theirs (of course) and we hooked up and, well, generally we just killed each other multiple times over a three day stint.
This is how LanParty geeks show the love...
This is how such love manifests itself:

Step One: Bragging and Bravado -- Each Lanner (btw, for those not in the know, LAN is an acronym for Local Area Network which is where our myriad of video games take place) talks incessantly and sometimes untruly about the accomplishments and abilities of their personal computers. Of course, these days, Dean and Wyatt win those contests as their computers are CLEARLY head and shoulders above my piddly outdated dinosaur that STILL plays Battlefield 2 without a hitch (albeit in a lower resolution, so shut up).

Step Two: Willie comes over -- This was an added step and unique to this three day contest. My friend Willie came over to Dean's to get some internet instructions from Dean's wife about how to navigate the CA state's website. This fucked up most of our day. But the evening was saved from complete ruin when Willie decided to play a few rounds of Battlefield: Vietnam with us. We were playing Co-op but Wilhelm (Willie) felt compelled to play against us on the AI side as VC. He won once, but the other games were close, though the USA still won overall.

Step Three: PLAY THE FREAKIN' GAMES, ALREADY!
The next day the contest really started. We played some Battlefield: Vietnam, then got some lunch. Next, we played Raven Shield (we would have played Athena Sword, but not everyone (Wyatt) had the disks). We played some Battlefront 2 for a while, but again, only two of us could play so that didn't last long. Then, about 8:00 pm, we broke out Dungeon Siege 2 and we had a blast from dusk till dawn. We stopped playing at 3:30am Sunday. We went from 11th level (Wyatt was 7th) to 14th level. If Wy-guy (Wyatt) would stop dancing around in front of the party and chasing encounters in, we'd be better off. But in the end it worked out fine. A good time was had by all. Unlike most Lanners, we enjoy very few head-to-head matches. We enjoy co-op games where we're up against the AI, which in most cases are quite formidable.
Sunday morning I had a couple raspberry Pop-Tarts and watched a couple episodes of Season One of Robot Chicken. Then we got to playing again. This time we experimented with various games like Flight Sim 2004, Battlefield 2, The Movies, The Sims 2: Nightlife, and Google Earth. We then played more Raven Shield. I love it when we go in with silenced weapons and Wyatt comes blazing in like Wyatt Earp (hence his name, I guess) with a L85A1 assault rifle with no muzzle brake. Hip hip! Eventually, we got to RTS's. We tried to get Empire Earth 2 to run, but no dice. Everyone needed a disk. So we played Dawn of War: Winter Assault instead. We played one game with Annihilate and Control Area with Shared Resources; three PC versus three non-teamed computers on Hard level on the map called Fury Island.

Dramatis Personae:
Dean: Blood Ravens (Space Marines)
Darth_Tanyan (Brian): Goldar Legion (Chaos Space Marines)
Wyatt: Vendoland 101st (Imperial Guard)
Comp 1: Eldar
Comp 2: Imperial Guard
Comp 3: Orks
I had Dean to my left and Wyatt to my right so I was safest starting out. Dean was fighting off Eldar from the get-go while Wyatt was fending off the IG. Because of that fact, he didn't grab enough Strategic Points and our requisition was slow and ponderous. I had to send all 10 of my Heretic squads on Wyatt's porch to grab requistion and help defend.
I tried grabbing the central Critical Location (just to see how long I could hold it) and it lasted for about a third of the game before the IG came in and killed me off after a prolonged and heated battle. I started building Khorne Berserkers en masse seasoned with the occasional Defiler. Then Dean complained about no one building power generators. So, I built another and maximized the tech on them (I had a total of three running as Chaos doesn't really need a lot of power until the third tier). I then went on the offensive and moved them north to help secure the center. After that, I aided Wyatt against the IG then moved to take out the Eldar pounding on Dean. With our combined strength, we simultaneously converged on the Eldar home base and pounded it to oblivion. Then the Eldar Avatar showed up and we found an outpost further south near Wyatt's base. We moved there and all three of us blasted it to kingdom come.
The End.
It was quite a game and we all talked about it for some time afterward (as all good games tend to do) and then it was hitting 10:00pm and Dean had to work the next day so....

Step Four: Cleanup
I got my gear, threw it back in the car, and made the two hour journey home. I made it home by midnight.
Damn. Lanning sure is fun, but that weekend goes by like it's a single day. I still wouldn't pass on it for the world. Gotta do it again, sometime.

Episode CXXII: A Newer Hope

2006-04-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

Waddaya know? I got another interview! It's slated for the end of this week, but this one looks promising. I get to work on HP and Lexmark printers for hospitals throughout the greater Modesto area. I have to use my own vehicle (no corp van this time around) but Hey! I'm not complainin'.
Therefore, my mood has improved somewhat. So that's something.

On another topic: What do I have to do to get someone to play ONE boardgame with me? Enslave whole populations? Bribery? Blackmail? Bait and switch tactics? I have this small enclave of boardgames just sitting there in my closet (or sometimes I act like there is someone out there that might mention boardgames in passing, so I stuff my trunk with them on weekends). I guess no one cares. Yet, I see Boardgamegeek.com and Boards & Bits and notice that there is an extensive network of people out there (intelligent ones, I might add) who are as bonkers about these things as I am. I have put my feelers out there and tried to connect, but most don't live in my area. Despite the fact that in Tracy we have a gaming outlet! Someone is buying these games! Who is it? Tell me now!!
Okay.... I'm cool. Everything's fine now. Alright. (whew!) Glad that episode was over. Now time to work on the sequel: Episode CXXIII: The Settlers of Catan Strike Back!
(And if you don't catch the reference, then you are not a Boardgame Geek - shame on you).

Don't Be So Surprised!

2006-04-04T22:41:00.000-07:00

This is my latest niece. She came into this world last December. You may recall my previous posts mentioning her.
I introduce you to Lauren.
Ain't she a cutie?
Just makes me wanna pinch her cheek and call her softee!
Btw, the reason her hair is 'made to stand an end like the fretful porpentine' is because she beheld my visage whilst I was taking this photo.
Just kidding...
My mom took this picture.
I haven't seen her in a while. I should drop by this weekend and see how she's doing. I think I will.
I found out the name of that elusive song on the Jaguar XJ commercial that's playing ubiquitously right now. It's called "I Turn My Camera On" by Spoon. Download it. It's tres cool! Sounds like old-school Prince.
Trying to ameliorate myself with the gameboard geek crowd... again. No details, just a statement of fact.
I'm still working on my novel... why? I dunno. If all I have is time, time is all I have.
No new news on the job front. I mailed off a boatload of resumes and only one company has e-mailed me a response that they even received it. I don't have much time, so I may have to kick it up a notch.
I watched Fellowship of the Ring part II today (the extended version). I'm so glad this film has such staying power. Much more than the Matrix movies did. I mean, I watch The Matrix: Reloaded or Revolutions and I feel like I've watched it before, but with LOTR it's like watching it again for the first time. Of course, I don't watch it too often so that may have something to do with it. Guess I'll go back to writing my novel. See ya later.

Mundane Miscellanea

2006-04-03T00:19:00.000-07:00

Just finished the D&D game this past April 1st (no, this is not an April Fools' Joke) (Also, as a side note, April 1st is International Atheist's Day... I would celebrate it, but what's the point?). My brother's wood elf fighter/rogue, named Apoth, died fighting a couple of drow fighters. Our ranger/sorcerer, Ariel, also went down but didn't die. It almost looked like a TPK (Total Party Kill) in the first encounter of the night, but Loni, a priest of the Grand Incinerator, came in at the last moment and fended off the drow clerics and fighters.
The game was decent. We had two players leave for two hours and then return. One player came in late. And my brother lost a character in the first hour of the game. So, it was quite an arhythmic game. I tried to test out Colossal Arena with them, but it never happened. I did, however, test out a new boardgame -- twice! with my friend Dean and his son. It's by Avalon Hill (Hasbro, Inc.) and it's called Nexus Ops. Quite an interesting game.
It's for 2-4 players of ages 12+, and in it you play one of four greedy corporations (Ares Inc., Black Helix Enterprises, Galactic Syndicate and Zyborg Technologies) who are trying to conquer an area of a newfound moon in a far distant planetary system in the year 2315. This moon has rubium deposits which I suppose is a very rare and valuable mineral (maybe it runs their hyperships or something, the background doesn't necessarily say). You recruit the native lifeforms (Fungoids, Crystallines, Rock Striders, Lava Leapers and Rubium Dragons which breathe plasma) to take over rubium mines near a monolith on this nameless moon (maybe it's called Nexus?). But if you play this game like Risk or any of it's offshoots you will lose this game more often than not. The key strategy in Nexus Ops is to complete the Secret Missions that are given to your corporation as cards every turn. Some are worth 1 victory point, others are worth a whopping 4 VPs. The winner is the first player to reach 12 VPs. That's it.
Combat is done by the round (in other words, it's not like Risk or Axis and Allies where you keep attacking until either the attacker decides to stop or the defender is destroyed), so it is quite common to have 'contested' hexes on the gameboard where neither player gains by possessing it. Winning battles ON YOUR TURN is the name of the game and even if you don't have a Secret Mission to complete for it, winning a battle will always earn you at least 1 VP.
The pieces are kinda weird. I am assuming that they are made of some strange petrochemical concoction because they look like gummi bears, have the feel of soft plastic, and smell terrible...
Maybe AH made them smell terrible on purpose to keep people from wanting to eat them. Who knows? Anyway, the game seems like chess on steroids. You have the pawn - the human, who can't enter magma pools or the Monolith and has the worst combat stat - must roll a 6 on a six-sided die (d6) to kill anything. Then the Fungoids and Crystallines are like bishops: just as chess has bishops on black squares and white squares, Fungoids fight well in Liquifungus Forests and suck in Crystal Spires spaces. The converse is true with the aptly named Crystallines. Next are the knights, the Rock Striders, who can leap through or into Rock Plains hexes. The rooks: Lava Leapers who can bounce two hexes from any magma pool hex and can kill on a 3+ on a d6 and if it should roll a 5 or 6 the Leaper player chooses the casualty rather than the defender which is the norm. Finally, the queen: The Rubium Dragon which can blast adjacent hexes with it's plasma breath and fight in battle with a 2+ being lethal.
There are other rules and strategies to consider, but all told, it was a very interesting game. And any game that Dean would want to play twice in two days has got to be good.
In other news... my brother is now officially ADDICTED to Dungeons & Dragons Online. God help him. I refuse to play games that I have to pay monthly fees for, diehard gamer that I am. Evercrack has finally hit home.
As far as the upcoming Kublacon, I did not pay the 'special rate' of $102 a night for a room at the Hyatt Regency. I live in Tracy, CA for God's sake. I'll just commute, thanks.
I wonder if any gamer chicks are gonna be there... (probably, but will they be SINGLE?)
Hmmmm.

What Do Unemployed People Do?

2006-03-23T01:03:00.000-08:00

They sleep.

Or in this case, they get drunk and pass out.

Actually, this photo was taken of me during the very hot evening of July 15th, 2005. I was invited to a Hungarian party in Modesto (yes, a party of Hungarians -- Nem beszelek magyarul). Of course, I was the oldest person there or tied with one other guy for oldest. Anyway, the party was a real hoot as you can tell.

But unemployed people do a lot of sleeping. I stay up until 3:00am typing crap into my computer about my adventurous lifestyle then get up the next day at 10:00am or later to find half the day already gone. It sucks.
I had just trained myself rather quickly during my short stint with 180 Connect Inc. to get up at 6:00am and stay up until 11:00pm only to get up again at 6:00am or earlier the next day. Boy, that schedule didn't take long to crash once I went jobless, did it?
When a person is bored and you've already cleaned your room and the bathroom and washed all your clothes and bought all your food for the next month. What then? You blow some cash, that's what you do! Lookit what I bought:
Yep, a boardgame. Look, some people buy drugs. Others buy porn. Me? I buy games. Could be worse.
Reiner Knizia is one of the game designing gods currently reigning in today's gaming world. You probably haven't heard of him. I didn't either until I realized his name was on half the boardgames out there right now. Ever since the Settlers of Catan came out in the early '90's 'Eurogames' have caught the USA by storm. How can you tell a Eurogame from an American boardgame?
One doesn't have killing and death in it, the other does. That's the short answer. Personally, I think killing and death is just as much a part of life as anything else. So....
load up the minigun and pass me the ammo belts!
But in this game that I bought today, Colossal Arena, there are no soldiers or guns or tactical combat decisions... or even dice! It's simply a card game based on a mythical gladitorial arena where 8 fantastic creatures duke it out (albeit abstractly) in a 5 round tournament. The various players, which can number from 2 to 5, make wagers on which creatures will survive the contest. Meanwhile other players are either bolstering their own picks with combat cards or diminishing your chances of success. It is a simple game that has a lot of card strategy involved and very difficult decisions at times. I love games that are simple, but challenging. Like chess, or Othello, or Go. But for $20.00 (and that is a cheap boardgame these days) I felt I got more than my money's worth. I've played a couple solitaire games to test out the rules (because that's what unemployed people do) and I intend to test it out on some of my D&D buddies (come to think of it, they're still my buddies, D&D notwithstanding) this next weekend. I'll let you all know how it went.
And since we are on the subject of games: KublaCon -- a gamer's paradise -- is happening this year at the Hyatt Regency in Burlingame on May 26-29 (Memorial Day weekend). I already grabbed my room for $102 for four days/three nights and expect another $40 on parking and other BS, not to mention a couple hundred for the games I know I'm going to cave and buy. I thought about DM'ing/hosting a D&D game there for one night. We'll see.
Well, I gotta get some shuteye as it's....oh....1:30 am PST. Catch ya later.

The Wheel of Fortune Spins Its Revolution

2006-03-16T23:07:00.000-08:00

It took me a week to write this post.
It is not something I am proud of, in fact, I abhor myself (more than usual) for it.
Let me be frank and non-cryptic -- I lost my job.
It was a glorious week, but one that ended in disaster. You see, last Thursday we went to a home in Folsom, CA to install an alarm system (actually, we were replacing an older system with a newer one) and in the course of events we had to run telephone wire from one end of the house to the other. Well, the house had no attic. So, that left the crawlspace.
Now, I have a fear of heights. Had it all my life. But in the few incidents during this job that I had to use a ladder and screw in smoke detectors, I felt confident enough (surprisingly so) that I had conquered that fear. But, it turns out, there is another fear nestled among that entangled mess of neuroses that I carry around: fear of vermin in dark places. Or maybe it's fear of shadows. I know I do not have claustrophobia so I have no idea where this fear came from. But when my trainer opened up the door and told me to go in with nothing but a lantern - I froze.
I just sat there. I peered inside and saw a king-size rat trap which had not been set off yet. I saw clods of dirt, a large, long insulator tube snaking its way across the ground, and the tail of a large rat scurrying behind it. Nope. Thank you very much, I am not going in there! I asked my trainer, "Do I get a standard issue pistol?" You can imagine the response. Needless to say, I cussed vehemently and failed to go in. Exasperated, the trainer took my lantern and made his way in. My supervisor called him later that night and asked how I was doing. He told him. The next day I was escorted into the boss's office. My boss was very kind and considerate, and he was canny enough to put the ball in my court (that way I couldn't claim unemployment compensation from him). He asked me, "Well, do you think this is something you can get over? I mean, if you tried again do you think you could do it?" As much as I wanted to say yes, I couldn't. I know I couldn't. If I could have conquered that phobia I would have done it Thursday night. The fact that I didn't meant this would be a continual problem and I didn't want my boss and my supervisor, or even the company for that matter, wasting time with someone who couldn't do something so elementary as run wire through a house. After mumbling my inadequacy regarding the crawlspace, I suppose I effectively quit. I returned the van, the tools, the uniform, the materials, (I never did get the gascard) and the PDA.
Shit.
I picked up my first and last paycheck yesterday. It was $414.87 take home. Not bad for four days, but that was at $10/hr. plus overtime. It would have been much more if I had been a normal person or perhaps a stronger person and sucked up the unreasoning fear of something I logically know to be harmless.
So now I am unemployed again.
The Wheel of Fortune has come full circle. Again.
If you ever have the opportunity to look at a Swiss 1JJ tarot deck and pull out the 10th Major Arcana card, you'll notice it's called La Roue d'Fortune. On it is a blind, nude woman obliviously turning the crankshaft of the Wheel of Fortune like a spit over a campfire. Notice the man falling off the Wheel, down into oblivion in the form of the letter 'X'? That, my friend, is me. Or at least, it feels like me.

Alarmed by This Business

2006-03-08T20:44:00.000-08:00

So my job gives me a company van... but no gascard
My job gives me directions to go to the customer... but no cell phone
My job hires me to install alarms... but no uniform
Luckily I received my tools and parts. Tomorrow I get my phone. They gave me one blue shirt w/company logo today.
The training has been less than adequate, at least for my first solo install this Saturday. Basically, I will be punching holes in someone's walls hoping I know what I'm doing. So, this job may not last long at all. Once I fuck up and lose a customer I'm sure they'll understand how rewarding their 'training' has been.
Until that time I will be reading manuals, studying what other techs are doing first-hand and trying to glean as much information as I can. I hope everything works out.

On my way to Monterey, CA today to do an alarm install (very beautiful day to be there, btw) I noticed that Gilroy was the Garlic Capital of the world. Hollister is the Artichoke Capital of the world. Stockton is the Asparagus Capital of the world. Fresno is the Raisin Capital of the world. Yuba City is the Dried Plum Capital of the world (btw, they used to the Prune Capital but it got too many jokes during their Prune Festival). How many towns in California have a patron fruit or vegetable? Send me what you know. I'll post it and make a catalogue of it just for kicks.
While in Monterey I picked up some chocolate raisins from The Candy Baron on Cannery Row. Excellent!! Best choco-raisins I ever had. Raisinettes these are not! These are covered in dark chocolate not that milk shit.

Well, tomorrow I have to meet my trainer Dave (he's cool, I don't blame him for the training defecit, he knows what he's doing) in Stockton at 8 o'clock am. That means I gotta get some rest. Talk to y'all later.

DAY ONE OF ABSOLUTE EMPLOYMENT

2006-03-06T21:31:00.000-08:00

Well. That's it. I went to work today.
For 11 hours. At $10/hr. But that's only initially. Once I get thru training, I'll be making close to $5,000/mo.
It just seems like happenstance that I always end up with a job that makes more money than the last. I don't know how I do it. I just blunder into it like Forrest Gump or something...
Anyway, I'm not installing DirecTV, I am installing only ADT alarm systems. I was very nervous, at first; going into people's homes and drilling holes in their walls, but I can see myself getting used to it. I am now considered Happy.
The Oscars... WHY? You know what? I don't give a rat's ass about who wins what or why. And I certainly do not give a flying, carnivorous rat's ass about the goddamn after-parties that every two-bit glamour whore and humpmeister hosts after the red-carpet gala. I am inundated with news items, and I use that term loosely, relating all the gossip of who did what with whom and when and frankly I just wish there was a Grand Incinerator to throw all this crap into. Out of sight, out of mind. And I wish America as a whole would do the same thing. Just don't buy that People rag or US weekly or whatever the hell is the rumormill du jour this week. I am taking a gigantic dump as I type on Bennifer and TomKat, and the insidious, odious, quasi-human things that came up with those car-crash names in the first place. As you can tell, I abhor gossip. The Jews have it right -- lashon ha ra, indeed!
So, as you have properly inferred, I hate this time of year. Only because of the Oscars and their celebrity-gossip bullshit. There, enough, I've beat a dead horse...
Well, I've tried to come up with something intelligent to say, and all that came out was this tripe, so you can't say I didn't try.

Mission Most Possible -- Unemployment Ends

2006-03-01T22:57:00.000-08:00

Well, they didn't call Friday but they called the next Monday and I am hired on with 180 Connect Inc. as of next Monday. What a relief...
Now my life can get out of Emergency Mode.
Guess you're wondering what I'll be doing. Well, if you read the last blog post you wouldn't wonder.
On the way back from my drug screening appointment yesterday I happened upon a hobby shop on Tracy Blvd in Tracy, CA! No more driving to Sacramento to buy lead figures and paints! No more epic journeys to find a decent D&D book or esoteric board game.
This place is called Hobbytown USA and is a local hobby shop run by a strange motley array of characters. I stopped by and bought over $160 worth of Citadel paints, brushes and a couple lead figures. I haven't painted figures since I was in junior high school and I play D&D (3.5 edition) so I figure.... what the hell.
Well, I painted a pair of lions and a drow elf archer over two days and I am already noticing significant improvement. If I can get my webcam working (it's been on the blink since I switched to Windows XP last year) I'll show off my handiwork.
Anyway, I'm glad to see Tracy is finally growing up... (and there goes my hard-earned cash).
A couple weeks ago I bought a new board game called Twilight Imperium 3rd edition. Now, I bought the 1st edition a long time ago (mid 90's I think) and my friend Dean and I thought it was a great game. Certainly more parameters to consider than in a game like Risk, for example. It's a sci-fi game of galactic conquest replete with Destroyers, Cruisers, Planetary Defense Systems and the infamous Dreadnoughts and War Suns (Death Stars). It features a hexagonal tile grid to build the game board (the galaxy) and it insures that it's never the same game. Not to mention there are nine races and the most the game can handle is six players so there is always a variety of strategies to employ. Dean and I tried it out right out of the box (the game retailed at $80.00) and his son joined in (we later learned he might have been too young to handle the complicated rules system). The game took about five hours to play but that's taking into account the fact that we were learning the game as we went along. The rules booklet is rife with examples and pictures, but it still wasn't clear on a couple issues until we 'playtested' it a few times to try and understand what the rules were saying. I have re-read the rules since and it seems much clearer now so Dean and I will give it another go and see what happens. In that first game I played the Xxcha Kingdom (turtleheads) and Dean played the Sol Federation (Earthlings) and his son played the Sardakk N'orr (lizardheads). It was an interesting game as I tried to play the political aspect against the Sol Federation's ability to colonize new worlds at a blinding speed. In the end, we had to quit due to time constraints, but it looked like it was me versus Dean with Dean probably with the upper hand.
Anyway, the game has military tactics coupled with political and economic aspects as well as logistical command and influence peddling. I'm guessing that it's much more wild and wooly with more players. If you can get thru the rules the first time, the game runs quite smoothly and it's a HUGE improvement over the original version of the game. The game is made by Fantasy Flight Games and invented by Christian T. Petersen. If you can find it, and you like Risk type games with a sci-fi twist, check it out.

I have a D&D game this Saturday at Yuba City with the ol' gang. We have an interesting krewe. We have a 4th level warlock/1st level rogue halfling named Nash, a 4th level human cleric of the Grand Incinerator named Loni, a 4th level human fighter named Lazarus, a 2nd level wood-elf fighter named Ahern?, I can't remember, and a 2nd level half-elf who has yet to enter the game, so I don't know his name either. His last character was killed by a justiciar who tried to capture the party for a crime committed a long time ago. Anyway, they're in a drow outpost right now that has just invaded a dwarven copper mine in the North Welpromond Downs. They made short work of the drow fighters they encountered, but that's only tip of the iceberg.
I've been playing D&D since 1981, running games or DM'ing (Dungeon Mastering) since 1982. I've played with this current group since 1996 (some players for longer) and I had another group in Sacramento that I played with for 5 years but that one recently ended since the host of that game moved to So Cal.
What can I say? I'm a gaming fool.
Well, it's midnight now. Gotta get some sleep. Bye.

The Search Ends? Day 106

2006-02-23T23:55:00.000-08:00

Well looks like tomorrow I may be taking the blue pill. If I get the phone call I will have a job installing alarm systems and DirecTV for various and sundry residences and small businesses across the greater Bay Area.

Now that ride wasn't all that bad now was it?

106 days to find a job. Not a record, I'm sure, but a good enough go. I gave myself until June and then I was gonna commit self-murder. Luckily, that won't be happening...

So my spirits are high. Not too high I hope as I may go in for a drug test tomorrow. So I'm stoked!

My friend Dan Ryan whom I met during my stint with Heald College is leaving. I was running D&D games at his place for over 5 years, at the tune of one game a month (with some hiccups). He is leaving for bigger and better things. I will miss him. If you're reading this, Dan. Good Luck to you and your family.

Btw, I am known as King Ralph by Dan and his family because of an 'incident' at his house during a party he was hosting. I think that's all I need to say about that. Let your imagination fill in the details. The only other item I will mention is that of a well-constructed beer bong made of plexiglass, plastic and metal valve. The rest is history. (I understand a girl this past New Years beat my record, but I don't think you can call a girl Ralph can you?)

What else? Oh yes, the new Overstock.com commercials suck. Thank you.

What else? I am reading the newest translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh by Stephen Mitchell. Anyone give a shit? Didn't think so. I think my next blog entry will be my analysis of that First Epic of Literature. Really, it's the first comic book. It has superheroes and gods and goddesses. Ethical dilemmas. Frank Miller and Stan Lee would see where I'm coming from... John Layman wouldn't though...

Oh one last thing....Monster.com does work. Honest. No joke. Give it a whirl and see where you end up.

Just remember, there is ALWAYS a better job out there.

Synopsis Encapsulitis - Day 93

2006-02-08T21:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I may have a job here soon. I won't go into details until next week when I know for sure. But it's in the same field: Computer repair/technician so I can't complain. The pay is a little less than before, but again, I can't complain. So I won't...
Got Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War the other day. Cool game. I always was into the tabletop game years ago and now that I can play it online, it just rocks. My friends and I get together about once a week and crank out a few bruising epic battles. I just got the expansion: Winter Assault yesterday and it's quite interesting. The Imperial Guard are quite a cool army but against Orks I discovered they were kinda weak. Maybe I need to adjust my gameplay against those greenskins.
My depression has been disappearing lately. I thought at first that it was because of the Super Bowl XL party I went to this past weekend, but, no, it was even before then. Maybe it was the nice warm weather we've had lately in California. I think that may be it. I guess next year, since this year's Super Bowl was XL, it'll be XXL? What will we do when Super Bowl 59 comes around? :-)
How about those Steelers?
Frankly... who cares?
I found the commercials this year to be lackluster. The Fed-Ex commercial and the Bud Light ones were the only ones I can recall actually. The rest were utter crapola. How about them Stones?? Frankly, who cares? So what if the censors cut off their mike for 'You make a dead man cum.' and 'COCK!' I'm glad Senor Jagger didn't change or skip the lyrics for those songs... or even change the venue. But I keep forgetting that I live in the Republican Theocratic Holdfast of America. You know, as opposed to the Islamic Theocratic Madrassah of Islamistan. Two sides of the same coin, eh?
Anyway, just wanted to keep in touch. Later.

The Long Hiatus Ends... Unemployment Day 66

2006-01-15T23:33:00.000-08:00

How can I encapsulate the past couple of months?

My sister had a baby girl, my roommate had a baby girl (no, the roommate is not my girlfriend nor is the child mine), my parents moved after 22 years at the same address, I was sick for one week, Christmas and New Year's, and building a couple computers for my brother and a friend.
Then I got addicted to the game: The Movies.
Still no job.
Might help if I got out and looked for one, eh?
The only reason I came back to add more crap on this blog is because someone who knows who he is remarked that I hadn't updated it in a while. Which means that someone actually reads this stuff!
So, I guess now that I have a reason, I will continue to impress everyone with the wonderful adventures that happen to me on a daily basis.
If I can ever get the movies that I created to .wma or .mov format, I will post them for download here on this site.
See ya soon....

Unemployment Day 22

2005-11-30T11:05:00.000-08:00

No luck on the search, but then I haven't really tried either. I'm currently building a couple computers for some people, and that makes a few bucks, but when I left my previous job, I lost my tools too. So, I'll have to order a new set. Spent the last few days helping my parents move to Yuba City only to discover that there is a hole in the roof and they have to get it fixed first before anyone can move in. Great. In the meantime I had to sleep on a couch under a cold, drafty window. I now have a cold. Yay.
I have already tried looking for work on the internet and the local school districts, but no luck. Next, I'll drop by the local banks and see if they need any computer repair-persons (God, I hate being PC). Other than that my milk went out of date. I usually drink it a few days after the spoil date, but after my absence at my parents' place it went more than a few days. I hate throwing away half a gallon of milk. I can never seem to drink or use it faster than time will allow. What a waste of money and milk.
My landlady just hooked me up with DirecTV. I love it! I surf more channels now than ever, plus the XM satellite radio stations are cool. In fact, I'm listening to the 70's station while I am typing this. Anyway, I'll keep you all posted as to my ongoing boring life. Viszlat!

Unemployment Day 8

2005-11-16T14:37:00.000-08:00

FREEDOM!
Looks like I got everything under control so far.
Got my Honda fixed. Got my final paychecks, emptied out my 401(k) (of which I only invested one year), and living the life of Riley.
Cleaned my room, got my hair cut, stocked up with enough food for the winter, and now The Search.
I'm not really worried, if worse comes to worst I can always join a staffing agency. It's just that I have never been able to do nothing for about 8 years. It feels good.
I actually caught myself saying "You're very welcome" to strangers. I helped a kid get a shopping cart out of the rack yesterday. I redirected a line in the bank to its proper direction. Things I would not have done two weeks ago.
Take away a man's job and he improves??
Odd.

It Is Accomplished

2005-11-09T14:13:00.000-08:00

Well, sorry for the delay in getting to this blog. But I have been busy. As in I have completed my 6.5 year stint with my job. My last day was yesterday, Election Day here in California. I didn't vote. I should have. But finalizing my departure from my job took up the whole day.

What to do now? Well, I have saved enough to get by. But I have to act quickly or else I'm homeless and my credit rating will be shot.

It was a tough decsion. But I am elated with the great burden that has been taken off of me. Now I intend to take it easy. See some sights. Have a social life once again and make the most of it. It is a rare time for me. Let's see what this adventure offers me....

The End is Near... at least for me

2005-10-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

I know no one reads this blog, so I don't have to worry about my boss reading this and instantly firing me.
But even that won't bother me since I have firmly resolved to quit my job sometime this week. I won't mention who I work for, but I will tell you (whoever you are) the sorry events that led me to this equally sorry conclusion:
I have worked as a repair technician for a major drugstore chain for 6 1/2 years. I have come to depend on its company vehicle and the fact that I haven't paid a nickel in gasoline all during that time, not to mention a company Nextel phone. Sounds like a sweet deal doesn't it? Well, it was...then. But now things are different. Corporate has pushed us (the repair techs) and pushed us to the point where we cannot do our jobs effectively. We have at this moment four projects - each time consuming - all due within days of each other along with new stores opening and our standard repair schedule (which is a month overdue). Suffice to say, the pressure and stress are such that it is beyond decency and I can actually envision myself paying for gas and using my old car and being without a cell phone without the stress of unrealistic deadlines and being on call 24/7 /365. I will miss the vacation (btw, I haven't used any of it yet since my supervisor put a moratorium on vacations due to the present project deadlines) and the people I have worked with, but as each day passes I sense more and more that I am reaching the end of things. This Wednesday, the 26th of October, is our bi-annual meeting of the bigwigs. I intend to tender my resignation at the meeting of those august personages. This will be the beginning of a great adventure for me. I am frightened. I have no backup plan. I will more than likely have to move (hopefully not with my parents, but that may happen). I had dreams of going off to Europe with the stash I have saved and living a bohemian lifestyle in the hopes of finding some sort of truth or perhaps experience (I have never been anywhere outside this country and I tire of hearing people tell of their experiences across the oceans). Or perhaps I will stick it out and use up my money on rent and food and gas and find another job that I will learn to hate in time and leave as well. Or I could just go homeless in America! I could pen my poetry to the beat of the street. I dunno. It's a scary proposition any way you look at it. Who knows what I will do...

Pain and Suffering in Various Tempos (Tempi?)

2005-10-20T21:44:00.000-07:00

After the bittersweet success of their last CD, 'Exciter', I had reservations about buying this latest offering from the holy three: Martin Gore, Dave Gahan and Andy Fletcher. But I have to admit, this CD is an eye-opener. I would certainly rate it their best collection of music since 'Violator' but it doesn't equal it. Not bad for a band I had almost consigned myself to remember only for its past triumphs. This album is definitely a shot in the arm of the listener declaring "Don't count us out just yet".
Here's the play by play:
I was scared half out of my wits after turning up the volume and playing the first track. It sounded like more 'Exciter' stuff. A distorted guitar amped out to the max going up and down in pitch, but it's a clever ruse. The guitar ends in a major scale tonic and Gahan begins "A Pain That I Am Used To". This song is quite addictive. I was impressed. I have learned that after "Precious" this is slated to be the next single and I can't disagree. It's a much better song than "Dream On" from 'Exciter' in my opinion.
The second track sounds like a cut from 'Speak & Spell' or 'Construction Time Again', but the analog synths disappear to reveal a deep bass line and Dave singing a very syncopated lyric and a beat that can't help but move you to gyrate in the living room. This is 'John the Revelator' referring to St. John the Divine (the guy who, according to legend, penned the Apocalypse or the Book of Revelations). Dave has a dim opinion of St. John, although I do take issue with his lyric 'He stole his God/From the Muslim too' as Revelations was written about three centuries before Mohammed was born. But I'll overlook such a trivial fact in a catchy tune such as this.
'Suffer Well' is the next song which is one of the three tunes on this CD written by Dave Gahan. This is the first time Dave has been given credit for songwriting on any DM album as it is usually Martin Gore, but for a freshman effort this song rocks. The chorus is classic Depeche Mode, almost a throwback to the mid-80's, but so what? That's what I preferred anyway. I think the track should have been longer though.
'The Sinner in Me' has a lilting chorus that is ethereal and dreamy. The beat is raw and reminiscient of pre-Violator DM. It quits at a point where you think it will end and then erupts again into chorus before falling away into ultimate quiet. A good tune all told.
The fifth track, 'Precious', is the first single off this CD and sounds akin to 'Enjoy the Silence' in its beat and analog synth style. The lyrics are about having children and caring for them in a modern world. I imagine that's why the cover art for the CD resembles a child doll made of angel's feathers. It's a reference to 'Precious' and the constant referral to angels in the lyrics of this album. It is a nice tune, but not spectacular. The video is interesting as well using ghostly clockwork prehistoric animals threatening a Titanic-esque ocean liner.
'Macro' is okay. Something I can listen to once in a while.
I have heard people say that the next track, 'I Want It All' (another Gahan tune) is the worst song on the album, but I disagree. I like the slow, rhythmic arpeggiations of a clear guitar and the celeste-like synths serving as backdrop to Gahan's slow, thought-provoking lyrics. A good song to meditate to. It's also the longest offering on the CD clocking in at 6:10.
The next track is another stunner: 'Nothing's Impossible' uses a robotic undertone to Gahan's and Gore's unison to great effect. The analog synths are used perfectly here to accent the catchy chorus. This tune rates as one of the best on the CD. Btw, this is the third song written by Dave.
'Introspectre' is the obligatory DM instrumental. Interesting, but I've heard better - just filler I imagine.
'Damaged People' is another memorable tune, with Gore adding a beautiful minor turn to the end of the chorus as well as poetic lyrics "When your lips touch mine/ it makes me forget that I'm cold and crying/ it makes me forget that I'm old and dying." Awesome.
'Lillian' is a decent tune. It sings the praises of a girl named Lillian whose every dress she wears is a loaded gun...
The final tune, 'The Darkest Star' is an excellent way to end the album. It is another hit. This is the song that has the lyric "playing the angel" in it which happens to be the CD's title. It is a slow ballad with a crunching, fortissimo at the close of each chorus. The minor ninth chord really darkens the hell out of this song. I love it.
In summary, this CD is really a surprise. I almost wrote these guys off, but they just won't go away. Their dark tunes inebreate. Their lyrics permeate. In short, give this CD a spin. If you like good music this album will not disappoint.

The 12 Year Quest

2005-10-13T21:51:00.000-07:00

So what to do?
I start reading on every religion extant in the world: Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Shinto, Paganism, Gnosticism, Judaism, anything.
And the more I read, the more I investigated, the more I talked to people about their respective religious beliefs, the more I migrated toward Athiesm.
Perhaps this is the sound of an idiot, all fury and wind amounting to nothing.
I started reading Socrates, Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. I began to apply their results to my life, and I realized in the end that I would be happier if I was told an unhappy truth, than a happy lie.
I embraced a kind of optimistic pessimism, an idea that I know the truth is painful (there is no God, there is no afterlife, this is all we have) but I am optimistic despite these truths. I can no longer bank on an infinite justice, I have to make my own. I can no longer rest in the faith of a god who will fight for peace and righteousness, for there is much needless tragedy and suffering in the world. I am left with the Epictetan dilemma: Is god willing but unable to do good? Then he is a limited being. Is god unwilling but able to do good? Then he is a monster. Is god unwilling and unable to do good? Then why worship him? Is god willing and able to do good? Then why is there evil in the world?
Of all these possibilities, I choose the first option. If there is a god, and the odds are that there isn't, then he must be a very-powerful but not omnipotent being. How else to reconcile the deep desire of a benevolent being of authority and the Holocaust, the Middle Passage, the Inquisition, terrible tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters that visit terror and death to the innocent as well as the guilty?
In the past few years, in the silence of the flurried storm of doubt which permeated my existence, a quiet familiar voice echoed into my brain. It was a tale of Yoni the Circle-Maker in the Babylonian Talmud. It was in a book called "The Book of Jewish Wisdom" from the Tracy City Library and no other book on any other religion intrigued me or forced my acute attention more than these snippets and excerpts taken from the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud. Soon, I was back to reading the Bible - but only the Old Testament - The Tanakh. Then I started studying Hebrew, because I wanted to read the Tanakh in its original language, just as I had learned Latin and Koine Greek in the seminary in order to understand the true meaning of the New Testament.
After twelve years of wandering, and five years of studying Judaism, I almost convinced myself to become a convert to Orthodox Judaism.
Almost.
I never spoke to a rabbi despite many who told me I should have. But a strange thought occured to me. If being Jewish doesn't guarantee heaven - i.e. anyone who is righteous could attain paradise, and Jews aren't given special treatment in heaven despite their being 'chosen people', then why should I belabor myself with 713 mitzvot to keep rather than the 7 commandments that a Son of Noah (anyone who is not Jewish is a Son of Noah, Jews are Sons of Abraham)must keep? There is also the added threat that I may backslide once I commit to becoming a Jew. And I do not wish to injure my friends in this way. Therefore, I believe the best way to help the Jews is not to become one, and so I remain B'nai Noach.
I keep the seven commandments given to Noah after the Deluge and I strive to be as righteous as I am able. I respect the Jews as well as any person who is true to their beliefs.
Thus, I have come not quite full circle, perhaps a helix, but I do not begrudge my journey nor have any regrets in taking it. I am a better person for it, I think, and if more people would question their beliefs and explore the truths which bind us rather than stay constrained in their limited universes of cave-shadows, I believe that this world would be a much better place, a world more fit for a messiah to visit.

The Chrysalis Splits

2005-10-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

That's right. The Truth is out there...
(Btw, House M.D. wasn't on yesterday, that lame-ass Commander-in-Chief show with Gina Davis was on instead).
So, one more miracle myth is shattered. I realize that this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I start reading anything I can get my hands on in regard to Biblical Criticism, Christology, History, Heresiology.... anything.
It becomes a disease, an obsession.
I left the seminary a year later, I lived on the streets of Santa Barbara for a few months then went back to live with my parents in Northern CA.
1988 was a hell of a year.
I tried to be a good Catholic, I even got Confirmed the next year by the late Bishop Quinn of Sacramento. Why? Why did I go through the trouble to be confirmed (this AFTER my stint in the seminary, oddly enough) when I was questioning the very underpinnings of Catholicism and even Christianity itself?
I was still a church-going individual until late 1990. That year I committed a mortal sin and left the Church (and the Knights of Columbus I had heretofore joined).
Now come the desert years. The Time of the Search or the Quest.
I come to the conclusion that Jesus of Nazareth is not the Son of Man as the Jews knew the term, nor was he the Son of God in the Greek sense of the term.
He was a man in the mold of Apollonius of Tyana, or Simon Magus, or Socrates himself. Just a man. And though his name and myth changed human history, a fact I would be a fool to deny, his message and his very life were hijacked in order to promulgate a religion that Jesus himself would have classified as out and out idolatry.
I tried for twelve years to find a way to integrate the Jesus of history with the Christ of myth and could, in the end, find no compromise.
Now the stacks of books in my room, various tomes of theory and historical critiques, books by Jean Dorese, Elaine Pagels, Robert W. Funk, Dominic Crossan, Bruce Chilton, Albert Schweitzer, Karl Barth, et. al. just sit and gather dust. I already know the Truth. Now....what do I do with it?

The Deconstruction of a Myth

2005-10-11T19:21:00.000-07:00

Now for a more serious line of thought...
It is a strange fact that I spent a year at St. Joseph's College Seminary studying for the Catholic priesthood. It was during that year that I met Pope John Paul II during his San Francisco visit in 1988.
During that time, I would have described myself as a 'liberal Catholic' and I think most at that seminary would also have labelled themselves that way, as opposed to the Camarillo seminary in Southern California (St. Joseph's was in Mountain View, just SE of San Jose). The Camarillo seminarians were very conservative, they still wore albs with tassles during vespers and matins.
I distinctly remember a stained glass window in the chapel that depicted an exorcism. It showed a priest with missal and holy water sprinkler before a child in a chair, and out of his back, fleeing the scene, was this very red demon (it reminded me of that deviled ham logo, you know the one with debonair, red devil's horned head on the wrapper) with a pitchfork swathed in hellish flame. I remember snickering at that window then, and I snicker even more at its recollection now. What a superstitious lot we Christians are.
Btw, if you're wondering what I was doing at Camarillo when I was supposed to be at St. Joseph's, our class visited there for a week. Tradition.
In any case, it was there at the seminary that my mind began its metamorphosis to rationality and adulthood. It was there that Fr. Bonsor S.S. (the S.S. stands for Society of St. Sulpice, not the Gestapo though one could argue that) taught me about Biblical Criticism in Theology 101.
This was the beginning of my awakening from the chrysalis of organized religion.
You see, all is not as it seems....
I was taught by my father (who during my youth was a staunch and ardent Catholic) that the miracle of the Four Evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the ones who wrote the gospels of the New Testament) was that they all agreed with each other though they were written in different places at different times.
But what I discovered is that the gospels agreed so much BECAUSE each writer copied material from the others. During the 60's or 70's CE (Common or Christian Era), Mark (or whoever he/she was, the names were added later to give credence to its contents) wrote his gospel. Have you noticed that when preachers and pundits quote the NT, that they quote Mark the least? Why is this? Simply because what is found in Mark can be found also, for the most part, in Luke and Matthew with added details. Mark is the shortest of the canonical gospels and if you read it in the original Koine Greek, it is devoid of literary bells and whistles, curt, to the point, with a bevy of run-on sentences. In other words, it reads like it is being told by oral transmission, i.e a dictation.
Because of this similarity between these three gospels, they are called synoptic (syn = same, optic = to see, in other words, they look the same when compared to each other).
This is a matter of some controversy among scholars.
Some put the order the synoptics were composed at:

Mark, then Luke then Matthew
Mark, then Matthew then Luke
Mark, then both Matthew and Luke simultaneously

Some even deny that Mark was the first gospel, but the consensus of opinion (including mine) is that Mark was first. This is known in the field as 'Markan priority'.

I will continue with this thread tomorrow. House M.D. is on. Can't miss it.

It's All About the... Omigawd!

2005-10-10T17:50:00.000-07:00

This is Sabine Ehrenfeld.
Otherwise known as the O-girl or the Overstock.com girl.
Otherwise known as... my wife.

Well, not seriously folks, but, gods above! What a woman! If there is any man extant who does not think that this woman is at the very least attractive he ought to be hung on the highest tree by his gonads until nature deems fit for them to shrivel thus dropping the offending bastard to his doom in the ground-hugging mangroves.
Now that I got that outta my system....
The following information was gleaned from Slate.com: She is German (no kidding?). She knows four languages (English, German, French and Italian) (I think that covers most of Europe don't you think?). She has children, but no mention of a husband. She has a private pilot's license with over 350 hours logged in the air. She prefers taildragger aircraft (Those would be prop planes with a tiny wheel at the tail - I know they are tough to steer once grounded). And she once flew alone from California to Montana with camping gear stowed in the cockpit.
Quite an achievement -- And I'm still struggling with pilot lessons and ground school.
Anyway, why spout all this crap, right? I mean, what's the point?
There is no point. There doesn't have to be. It's my blog.
Suffice to say, I just thought I would inculcate you with what you already know, a priori: That this chick is HOT and I stop what I'm doing to watch her commercials. The picture above was taken from the first Overstock.com commercial. The second one I saw for the first time yesterday afternoon. I love the way she teases the camera. Right at the end of the second commercial, she leans toward the camera to sit down on a plush, white couch (of course it's white, everything in an Overstock commercial is white!) giving a sneak peek at her tanned bosom before slinking off the shirt from her shoulder, intoning another "it's all about..." Truth be told, I can't remember what she says at that point, as all the blood in my body went somewhere other than my ears, but I think she says "It's all about the vacation." or something like that.
Anyway, if you ever wondered who she is and what she does, now you know.
Oh, btw, she's 41. (hubba hubba) :-)

The Games People Play

2005-10-07T19:09:00.000-07:00

What other thought-provoking ideas can I come up with on this lame-ass blog....?

Ah! I bought the game FlatOut the other day, some British racing game using faux muscle cars with the added joy of propelling your anarchist, leather-clad driver out the windshield (or is it windscreen?). It was fun for a week or so, but now it's just another racing game. The older I become, the less these games mean to me. Or is it the more jaded I have become due to my age and the fact that I have been playing video games since Donkey Kong was unveiled at the local Flipper Flapper Fun Co. and enough is enough already.
Any game that you can find can be classified into four categories, to wit: FPS (First Person Shooter), RTS (real time strategy), Simulator or Adventure game. And while the craze with MMORPG's is starting to table out and descend on our imaginary graph of 'cool', I put those games in with their respective categories, i.e. mainly adventure (e.g. Star Wars Galaxies, Guild Wars) but sometimes RTS (e.g. the Battlefield and Warcraft series).
And after playing one after another for years on end, they have just become too predictable and, dare I say it, are they becoming less original and more lame as time goes on? Is this another rant of a pissed-off, overaged, adolescent wannabe? Perhaps...
But more than that I am just upset at the lack of surprise that used to take hold of me during the 'golden years' of video games (1981-1986). Games such as Joust, Battlezone, Asteroids, Defender, Crystal Castles, Q-bert, Disks of Tron, Space Invaders, Tempest, et. al. Every time a new game came out it wasn't an improved version of the same idea, it was a totally new idea altogether. And each game differed from the others not just in sound quality and graphics, but in the game mechanic itself. Playing Centipede was not the same as playing Tempest though each used a rotary paddle and a fire button.
Perhaps all the good ideas are gone already? Perhaps there is nothing new under the sun? I doubt it. Where humanity and art are concerned, there are bland moments, but only moments; soon a new revolution emerges from the boring ashes of the old. But, my God, how long must I wait for it?

You Deserve a Break Today!

2005-10-06T21:30:00.000-07:00

Behold the Hand of Bush!
Or is it 'A pencil in the hand is worth a pee-break in the bush'?
In this world of omnipresent media, why not zoom in on the President's bathroom note?
What I am fascinated in is the way Mr. Bush alternates from lower to upper case within a word much less a sentence. I suppose the almost fully capitalized word 'BATHroom' means he REAlly has to go! And is this standard procedure for a statesman, to ASK for a potty-break during a speech from the Prime Minister of Djibouti? That must suck. I can imagine the media dogpiling him for getting up and leaving during a speech from some nameless country's representative.
And what is up with 'I think I may need a bathroom break?' He thinks he may need? Don't you think if you have to start writing it down amid cameras aplenty the decision has already went from 'thought' to 'impending doom'? He should have written: 'I gotta piss!' or 'My bowels are buckling' or 'My farts are increasing in their fecal stench - I fear an evacuation is forthcoming.' or the perennial favorite: 'I think I may have to -- nevermind.'

A blog about nothing

2005-10-06T21:15:00.000-07:00

That's right. I have nothing to say!

Except that the above picture is what Tracy, CA looked like before the developers moved in and built four million homes on the left side of this road (Corral Hollow Rd.). They also added new asphalt and paint to the road and installed a traffic light or two. This photo was taken in August of 2003.

Welcome

2005-09-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

This is actually Logic and Nausea (The Reimagining) or version 2.0, what have you, as the first version was insipid and really didn't amount to anything meaningful (does any blog?). So, I have wiped the slate clean and started over. Kinda like what God did in the time of Noah.
Read on and have fun!