Hear no Evil

Created by Train Horns

I haven't made a proper entry in ages... partly because I spent the time moving posts from Livejournal to this place... and partly because I'm trying to stop posting how negative I feel about absolutely everything...

so without making this post deeply philosophical and negative, let's have a look at what's buzzing in my head

I started to regularly play on Saturdays. The games alternate between Scion run by me (The Stoicheion Pentagram) and In Nomine not run by me. Same group for both, the GM of In Nomine is a cool guy, like the rest of the group... it's a relaxing experience and it actually gives me energy to be more productive during the week... strange...

I'm writing up a play report from those Scion sessions, which goes very slowly. Especially this week when I have to deal with writing a literature review for Higher Education...

The research projects aren't going too bad, even though I keep hitting myself on the head for not making more progress than I'm doing. I keep feeling like if I were to stop being lazy, I would have it all done by now... even though the due dates are in June... but that's me being me...

United We Stand goes well. We had a rough patch earlier this month but it seems like we prevailed, once again. I'm really proud of that game... I even make a wiki for it on Obsidian Portal and put there what I had in my notes. It's not much but I hope my players will contribute, it's a wiki, right? I'm summarising the threads and building up a network for the wiki pages but it's going even slower than The Stoicheion Pentagram.

Another thing that I'm working on is making posts for Alea Iacta Est. How fast am I making them? The last post, about 700 words, I wrote up in two weeks... and I can type fast... funnily enough, since I posted a link to the Blog Carnival, my traffic went up to 21 views yesterday... I have some other posts saved in drafts, only one is finished and it's really short...

including the super secret project (which had a little setback that the Team is trying to destroy), it may seem like I am focusing too much on roleplaying related stuff... I don't think so, most of my time is still spent studying... I just don't feel any confidence in my research projects... I might be even focusing too much on one project at the expense of my other two...

My heart really isn't in studying right now. I don't know why, I never felt this down about it in my life... I'm sure I get over it, I'll read and write what I'm supposed to and get whatever grades I get... it's just the next step that's really scary...

There's a DnD 4th Edition day tomorrow at the Roleplaying Club I go to... now I'm wondering if I should go... I just don't feel like I deserve it...

Will I ever stop being this much of a workaholic? Unlikely...
Will I ever stop being such a wuss and cry-baby? Even less likely...

Scion Quotes

"How big is this Tiamat?"
"Taking into account that after defeating her, Marduk split her in half and created the Earth and Sky from those two halves, I presume she's very, very big."

"Okay, the wind is so strong that it might pick you up. Roll Stamina+Fortitude to resist... okay, you're starting to float into the sandstorm."
"I grab her hand!"
"You got yourself a human balloon."

"Physics don't work like that."
"Physics doesn't apply to me because I'm Awesome!"

"But if he throws the lion at the griffin which is holding you up in the air, both Titanspawn will end up on top of you!"
"I can take it, I have fucking Endurance!"

BookMooch is cool

I have just received my first book from BookMooch. It's the first book in the Victoria Nelson series Blood Price and I wanted to check it out since watching Blood Ties... it came from Germany... I wasn't sure if I'd like BookMooch that much since I enjoy having books on my shelf but now at least I have a way to get rid of unwanted books without destroying them... too bad the site isn't so good when it comes to grabbing popular titles... nor is it that good when you're not from the United States but that's nothing new on the internet...

Since we're on the subject of books... apparently, having a book on twentieth century short stories means I might be interested in cookbooks...

Mercy and Justice

In Victorian London, two lovers were to be given to different spouses. They could not bare the thought so thy ran away together to the east side. On their first night, the two fools were robbed and the young woman raped. Thus began her slow descent into madness, she began to see her assailant everywhere, her life was a series of wailing, shaking in terror and sleeping from exhaustion. The young man tried to calm her down, searched for a job and found an urge in himself to find the man who robbed them. There was another threat he had to fight with, the neighbours demanding his love were to be given to a mental institution.

Years later, they went to America but instead of finding the American Dream, they found an economic depression. The fact that they neither aged nor died was not lost on them but they were happy to have more time together. The young woman finally free from the madness after the young man found and killed her attacker after all these years. Now they would kill together, she those who craved for the release of death, he those who were judged not to be worthy of walking among the living.

They had their questions; why nothing could kill them? why no one could find them? why did they roam the streets like ghosts?

One day they descented to the underworld. They saw the miserable, the sufferers, the unfaithful, the wrathful, the treacherous and the murderers. The more they walked in, the better this place felt, they were lords in their own domain. In the great city they found their answers when brought before their Godmother and Godfather. They told them thus:

"All that is alive must die. Sometimes the living beg for more time but to create that time it needs to be taken from others. We offered your parents a deal, we would give them the life time of their unborn children. You were born but you were never alive and so you will never die. This is not the first time and not the last. Humanity is growing and we are no longer able to act as the angels of death for all of it. You will share our burden. One for mercy, One for justice."

They agreed... but not everyone did. Years later they would meet those who could not stand this. The deal, they said, was unnatural and against the laws set forth by the universe. The rogue faction searched for allies to wage war on Lord and Lady Death, soon the young lovers would need to take a stand like all the pairs before them did.

Working Weekend is Free

A while ago my dad asked me about one thing in relation to work.

As some of you may (or may not) know, my dad works as a lorry driver. Every other week, he drives off on Friday to make a delivery and returns to base on a Saturday because it's such a long trip from point A to B. Apparently, his employer now tells him that working four hours on a Saturday isn't work so he won't be paid for driving back to base on the weekend. The matter could be resolved simply by not working on Saturday but the situation is such that if he doesn't, he'll be spending the weekend in the lorry...

So he asked me to find out if this is even legal for an employer to do...

The Colour of Magic

The Colour of Magic is a very misleading title for this film. It is based not on the first Discworld book by Terry Pratchett but on the two first. The Light Fantastic is encompassed by the second part of the film which bares the same title. As such, the film varies from the book in that it meshes the two plots together... or rather, one plot, since as Pratchett says himself, the first book is just a series of funny stories.

Funny stories they are. Thieves, assassins, imaginary dragons, giant stone trolls, magic swords stuck in stones, treacherous and power hungry wizards, heroic barbarians. Epic plot to save the world included. We're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we?

The Colour of Magic begins with the meeting of Rincewind and Twoflower. The first a failed wizard, expelled from Unseen University due to his inability to learn any spell. The latter is the first tourist, not knowing the value of his gold and a romantic optimist seeking adventure from his mundane insurance clerk job. The Luggage, a walking box with homicidal loyalty towards the tourist seems to be another character in this group, later joined by Cohen The Barbarian, the eighty year old retired Greatest Hero of the Discworld.

The film is very well made, much more interesting than the books it was based on. The characters are interesting and parodies of certain fantasy tropes. However, like with all parodies, it is hard to enjoy them if you don't know the references used. There are visual and audio jokes within and at least a few puns.

What else can I say? I'm too impressed to find much fault in it. I keep having flashes of the humorous parts and they were many of them, this is not to say that the film lacked cohesion. Far from it, using the plot of The Light Fantastic to create a plot throughout two parts proved a very good move, even though some scenes from the Colour of Magic couldn't be included in order to create new scenes with Trymon, the main villain of the film.

Lastly, I can say that to understand the film, you don't have to have read the book. I didn't read it before watching this and I still feel it's a film worth watching.