I don't know why I had an urge to go out and buy a trade today. I haven't bought any in months so that's probably why. I was a bit annoyed that Amazon didn't had the third volume of Y The Last Man but I took this as a perfect opportunity to support the local comic book shop. Unfortunately, they did not have a copy either. Since I don't like to go back empty handed, I left them my money in exchange for Scott Pilgrim versus the World.
Afterwards I was still not satisfied. I went to WH Smith knowing that there is a very slim chance that I might find that book in their badly organised graphic novel shelve. As I go downstairs, wondering what I'm wasting my time for, my eyes lay upon the shelve and the first thing I see is the exact same book I came here to buy! I was so overjoyed... I also bought Focus, because I haven't read any popular science magazine in ages...
I rarely have days like this...
Did you think this is the end? Of course not... I went shopping because I needed to get some things into my fridge. While getting various dead things into my basket, I noticed they offered the Collector's Edition of Men In Black for £3... so I bought it too.
One of these days when everything just has to go right...
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Friday, 16 January 2009
Justice
Deep in the woods a strange scene occurred. A car was being held in place by two rows of people holding its back and front even though the driver kept on trying to get out of this place. Finally, the people couldn't hold it any longer and they found themselves under the vehicle's wheels. The driver drove all over them, making sure they were all dead.
This has been noted by a distinguished detective who upon witnessing the mass murder, went up to the car and knocked on the car's window. When no reply came, he smashed the window open, grabbed the drivers tie and tied him up beneath the chassis. Whilst the culprit was screaming for mercy and out of fear of being dropped under a raging car, the detective took him to the police station in town.
After reaching the parking lot, he told him with a smile he needs to pay for his crimes and so they politely went to see a police officer who would pass judgement on the poor fellow.
This has been noted by a distinguished detective who upon witnessing the mass murder, went up to the car and knocked on the car's window. When no reply came, he smashed the window open, grabbed the drivers tie and tied him up beneath the chassis. Whilst the culprit was screaming for mercy and out of fear of being dropped under a raging car, the detective took him to the police station in town.
After reaching the parking lot, he told him with a smile he needs to pay for his crimes and so they politely went to see a police officer who would pass judgement on the poor fellow.
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
World War 2 Superheroics with Mom!
I wake up and go to brush my teeth. Meanwhile, the radio station is broadcasting how the nazi planes are bombing poor Norway! I keep on brushing my teeth a little bit faster when my mom jumps into the bathroom.
"There's an attack on Norway," she says. "You better get going."
"I know mom," I finish off the teeth cleaning. "I won't be long, a few more bombs won't make a difference."
"I certainly hope so!"
"Have you seen my costume?" I ask after getting back to my room. "I can't find it anywhere."
"Have you checked the drawer?" she shouts from the kitchen.
"Yes," I reply. "I did, it's not there."
After a while of scrambling I find it and get it on, when I'm about to leave through the front door, mom catches up with me.
"Oh and can you take this to your uncle while you're there," she gives me a bag of cake from the smell of it.
"Yes, I can but I need to be going," I'm starting to get a little worried. "They probably burned half the country already."
"Oh, you're such a big boy, I'm so proud of you," she hugs me. "Just like your father!"
"Can I go now?" she releases the hold she has on me.
"Just don't make too much property damage, and watch out for loose scrap metal, and don't get your cape torn, and don't forget the bullets flying."
"Yes mom, it's not the first time," I say as I fly away into the raging sky.
"There's an attack on Norway," she says. "You better get going."
"I know mom," I finish off the teeth cleaning. "I won't be long, a few more bombs won't make a difference."
"I certainly hope so!"
"Have you seen my costume?" I ask after getting back to my room. "I can't find it anywhere."
"Have you checked the drawer?" she shouts from the kitchen.
"Yes," I reply. "I did, it's not there."
After a while of scrambling I find it and get it on, when I'm about to leave through the front door, mom catches up with me.
"Oh and can you take this to your uncle while you're there," she gives me a bag of cake from the smell of it.
"Yes, I can but I need to be going," I'm starting to get a little worried. "They probably burned half the country already."
"Oh, you're such a big boy, I'm so proud of you," she hugs me. "Just like your father!"
"Can I go now?" she releases the hold she has on me.
"Just don't make too much property damage, and watch out for loose scrap metal, and don't get your cape torn, and don't forget the bullets flying."
"Yes mom, it's not the first time," I say as I fly away into the raging sky.
New Year Resolutions
Since everyone and their mom thinks New Year Resolutions are a waste of time and never work, I thought I might give them a try.
Be more of a jerk
Deoq once said that I suffer from an ailment of being too nice. Before that, my doctors always said I need to be more egoistic. I never really took my tendency to think about the other person before myself as a bad thing. Recent years proved me wrong (happens more often than I don't care to admit), I'm just being taken advantage of and abused as I don't want conflict to complicate my life. This needs to end, I have to change my attitude. Malice is not hard, I just need to find a balance that works.
Cease activity on the Polish side of the internet
RPG.net has this saying: no game is better than a bad game. This can be easily translated to other walks of life as: not doing something is better than doing something that only causes you frustration. There's really no point in me engaging in an activity that only turn out is bashing my head on the wall out of sheer frustration on how things are.
Get a BA
My final year and I'm writing up a blog post instead of studying? Who does that?! Me, of course.
Learn some prayers
Already started learning one really long one. Maybe I'll be done with it by the end of the year... or maybe not. I can't really call myself orthodox if I don't pray, right?
Read more
I've put an hour in my schedule just to read. It's working, I'm reading. I want to get rid of the pile of books to be read. I probably won't make much progress until I get out of university and into the scary wide world of doom. I'm making progress in getting through the 105 books I own which is a good thing!
Send a story to some magazines
While most of my ideas are best served in novel format (what can I say, I like complexity), I have an idea for a short story now and then. I've never tried sending it to any magazines for publication, there are some bits I don't like about publishing but I can't use my idealism as an excuse all the time. I made preliminary research, now I just have to edit the story I have and send it to as much places I can.
Start jogging
I wanted to start working on my body for a while now. I had an epiphany recently, it often happens I have trouble sleeping, I just wake up very early in the morning. I'm a morning person I guess. I'll use this ability of mine to wake up early and start the day with a run. I find it hard to imagine there will be a lot of people at 5-6 AM and a bit of time alone with the world would do me good. Although, I think I might start a bit later in the year. Catching a cold now would only complicate things.
Write Stuff
I promised to write a couple of things for MrGone, Calliope, Seven and Alther to read. I've been putting it off because I prioritised my studies higher than those things and it's been slowly eating me up. I really don't like breaking promises, and while technically I didn't break anything since there was no deadline involved, I still feel bad about it. There's also Class Deceased, the novel I started a year ago, which didn't get any progress at all. I Should Be Writing had a very good point in saying that it doesn't matter if you write 5 words or 1000 words a day, a week or a month, it's more than nothing. I don't think that was the exact wording, but you get my meaning. As such, I won't care how much or what, I'll just write whenever I'll get the chance.
Be more of a jerk
Deoq once said that I suffer from an ailment of being too nice. Before that, my doctors always said I need to be more egoistic. I never really took my tendency to think about the other person before myself as a bad thing. Recent years proved me wrong (happens more often than I don't care to admit), I'm just being taken advantage of and abused as I don't want conflict to complicate my life. This needs to end, I have to change my attitude. Malice is not hard, I just need to find a balance that works.
Cease activity on the Polish side of the internet
RPG.net has this saying: no game is better than a bad game. This can be easily translated to other walks of life as: not doing something is better than doing something that only causes you frustration. There's really no point in me engaging in an activity that only turn out is bashing my head on the wall out of sheer frustration on how things are.
Get a BA
My final year and I'm writing up a blog post instead of studying? Who does that?! Me, of course.
Learn some prayers
Already started learning one really long one. Maybe I'll be done with it by the end of the year... or maybe not. I can't really call myself orthodox if I don't pray, right?
Read more
I've put an hour in my schedule just to read. It's working, I'm reading. I want to get rid of the pile of books to be read. I probably won't make much progress until I get out of university and into the scary wide world of doom. I'm making progress in getting through the 105 books I own which is a good thing!
Send a story to some magazines
While most of my ideas are best served in novel format (what can I say, I like complexity), I have an idea for a short story now and then. I've never tried sending it to any magazines for publication, there are some bits I don't like about publishing but I can't use my idealism as an excuse all the time. I made preliminary research, now I just have to edit the story I have and send it to as much places I can.
Start jogging
I wanted to start working on my body for a while now. I had an epiphany recently, it often happens I have trouble sleeping, I just wake up very early in the morning. I'm a morning person I guess. I'll use this ability of mine to wake up early and start the day with a run. I find it hard to imagine there will be a lot of people at 5-6 AM and a bit of time alone with the world would do me good. Although, I think I might start a bit later in the year. Catching a cold now would only complicate things.
Write Stuff
I promised to write a couple of things for MrGone, Calliope, Seven and Alther to read. I've been putting it off because I prioritised my studies higher than those things and it's been slowly eating me up. I really don't like breaking promises, and while technically I didn't break anything since there was no deadline involved, I still feel bad about it. There's also Class Deceased, the novel I started a year ago, which didn't get any progress at all. I Should Be Writing had a very good point in saying that it doesn't matter if you write 5 words or 1000 words a day, a week or a month, it's more than nothing. I don't think that was the exact wording, but you get my meaning. As such, I won't care how much or what, I'll just write whenever I'll get the chance.
Saturday, 10 January 2009
This is Life
I just came back from the Wench.
I had a really great day. We talked, watched Sweeney Todd and had a pizza. I also did some shopping meaning I acquired sustenance and didn't spend any hours that I would use for essay writing.
Sirus recognised me, hoops were had!!!
Love the cats, as always!
I also had the pleasure to add a couple sociology books to my humble library and I got a present from Ash... which really surprised me to the extent I had no idea what has just occurred.
I need to have more days like this one...
I had a really great day. We talked, watched Sweeney Todd and had a pizza. I also did some shopping meaning I acquired sustenance and didn't spend any hours that I would use for essay writing.
Sirus recognised me, hoops were had!!!
Love the cats, as always!
I also had the pleasure to add a couple sociology books to my humble library and I got a present from Ash... which really surprised me to the extent I had no idea what has just occurred.
I need to have more days like this one...
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Know Thy Game
During my usual rambling of nonsense, I've been told something that made me think.
Everybody knows what game they know best... and like always, I don't accept myself as part of that group.
A statement was made: I must know Exalted better than Mage
Since I claimed that there is no measure of how well you can know a game, I've been informed that I do know what game I have read more and which I played more (all contributing to the knowledge of a game) so it follows I know Exalted better than Mage.
And yet, I feel unconvinced by this argument.
It is true that I read more Exalted books than Mage books and I played/run Exalted more.
If you were to ask me a question about Mage, I'd need to first look into a book. However, if you were to ask me a question about Exalted, I'd need to first look into a book... it happens more often that you think...
Just the other day I was asked what a player should roll to remember an information from their past incarnation's memory. So I guessed that would be Intelligence + Lore, then I looked at some Merit to find if there are any modifiers for that sort of roll. I found none, so I made them up.
Another player asked me if there are any smoke bombs in Exalted. I said yes so he asked about the book with them. To which my reply was: "I don't know, I made that up."
You might say that since I've had to read any and all information about the setting and use them regularly in the game I run, that I know it better. While it is true that I know every kingdom there is in the area we are playing in, what their political situation is, recent history, rulers, culture, military activity, the powers behind the scenes, the Essence lines, the history of the place, etc. and I know it all because... I made it up. All I could find in the official material is that there are hundred kingdoms in the area and they export food everywhere. You might say that I'm not running Exalted in its setting since the Hundred Kingdoms are said to rarely go to battle, whilst in the game I run, they are on the brink of a full blown out war with one another.
Since I know what Mage is about, its theme and mood, I read the base setting and I can refer to the book. I'll take those things, that feel of the game and add my own details. Just like I did with the Exalted game I run. As such I don't feel I know Mage any less than I know Exalted. Especially since there's a ton of people who answer questions about both games that I had no clue someone would ask.
Memorising the setting and mechanics is just not fun to me. I do fine with an excel sheet to do the math and a doc file to store the additional information so I don't have to remember it. I have a lousy memory so it often happens that I need to look into the rules for one thing twice in a game session... unless the player remembers it from before.
Setting discussion and mechanical optimisation of characters just bores me. I don't like anything that adds to the mechanics because that only ends up making my gaming experience less fun. In a game I don't look for either a simple or complex dice engine, neither to I crave for a rich setting of lack thereof (Scion!)... all I want is something to stimulate my imagination and that is easily achieved.
My conclusion would probably be that I wouldn't consider myself knowing one game better than the other. It might be bullshit on my part but yeah, I just don't see it...
Preferring one game over the other, now that's a different matter ;)
Everybody knows what game they know best... and like always, I don't accept myself as part of that group.
A statement was made: I must know Exalted better than Mage
Since I claimed that there is no measure of how well you can know a game, I've been informed that I do know what game I have read more and which I played more (all contributing to the knowledge of a game) so it follows I know Exalted better than Mage.
And yet, I feel unconvinced by this argument.
It is true that I read more Exalted books than Mage books and I played/run Exalted more.
If you were to ask me a question about Mage, I'd need to first look into a book. However, if you were to ask me a question about Exalted, I'd need to first look into a book... it happens more often that you think...
Just the other day I was asked what a player should roll to remember an information from their past incarnation's memory. So I guessed that would be Intelligence + Lore, then I looked at some Merit to find if there are any modifiers for that sort of roll. I found none, so I made them up.
Another player asked me if there are any smoke bombs in Exalted. I said yes so he asked about the book with them. To which my reply was: "I don't know, I made that up."
You might say that since I've had to read any and all information about the setting and use them regularly in the game I run, that I know it better. While it is true that I know every kingdom there is in the area we are playing in, what their political situation is, recent history, rulers, culture, military activity, the powers behind the scenes, the Essence lines, the history of the place, etc. and I know it all because... I made it up. All I could find in the official material is that there are hundred kingdoms in the area and they export food everywhere. You might say that I'm not running Exalted in its setting since the Hundred Kingdoms are said to rarely go to battle, whilst in the game I run, they are on the brink of a full blown out war with one another.
Since I know what Mage is about, its theme and mood, I read the base setting and I can refer to the book. I'll take those things, that feel of the game and add my own details. Just like I did with the Exalted game I run. As such I don't feel I know Mage any less than I know Exalted. Especially since there's a ton of people who answer questions about both games that I had no clue someone would ask.
Memorising the setting and mechanics is just not fun to me. I do fine with an excel sheet to do the math and a doc file to store the additional information so I don't have to remember it. I have a lousy memory so it often happens that I need to look into the rules for one thing twice in a game session... unless the player remembers it from before.
Setting discussion and mechanical optimisation of characters just bores me. I don't like anything that adds to the mechanics because that only ends up making my gaming experience less fun. In a game I don't look for either a simple or complex dice engine, neither to I crave for a rich setting of lack thereof (Scion!)... all I want is something to stimulate my imagination and that is easily achieved.
My conclusion would probably be that I wouldn't consider myself knowing one game better than the other. It might be bullshit on my part but yeah, I just don't see it...
Preferring one game over the other, now that's a different matter ;)
Monday, 22 December 2008
This just came in
You think you're so great Christian!
Sending me books for Christmas!
Human Occupied Landfill and Ninja Burger: The RPG 2nd Edition?!
I will not tolerate the way you stomp all over my pride...
Beware my wrath!
The last words you'll hear from me:
Thank you
and DIE!!!
Sending me books for Christmas!
Human Occupied Landfill and Ninja Burger: The RPG 2nd Edition?!
I will not tolerate the way you stomp all over my pride...
Beware my wrath!
The last words you'll hear from me:
Thank you
and DIE!!!
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