Current mood:

chipper

Because I want to vegg.. MEME!
Yesterday was a day that defied craptacular. I am trying as much as i can at work to have a "Me" day and recharge my batteries. As such I decided to give into a meme.

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The chooser was allthingsaaron who I friended a few years back when you could find people who had the most interests similar to yours. I've watched his writing on WoW, writing, and occasionally heavy metal and obscure internet porn with lively interest. So without further to do,
Angels - I am a fairly religious Roman Catholic. Our mystics are really big on angels. One of the coolest things I find about angels is they aren't the cute little cherubs you see in Botticelli paintings. The first thing any angel ever says to a human is "Do Not be Afraid" and thats because they are frickin scary. They destroy entire cities. Plus they are kind of Christianity's answer to polytheism along with saints (in RC again). When God can't be bothered to take a personal hand, you get Angels to go do his dirty work. Do I believe in angels? I guess I believe in the idea of angels, but do not claim any personal experience with them.

flaming carrot This one kind of dates me. Back in the 1980s there was a small group of independant comic before independant comics were cool. My favorite was Cerebus which was great for about 200 episodes and then devolved into a load of suck. But there was one brief cross over where Cerebus met the Flaming Carrot. The Flaming Carrot was kind of a da-daist character. You didn't really understand WHY there was a carrot faced man with a flame off the top of his head. He didn't really have any super powers. He often spoke in non-sequitors. But he was out there fighting the forces of evil in kind of obscure ways. He is responsible for the exclamation "UT!" which I guess means the equivilent of "WOW or YES" and was often saying "UT! Is Good!" My favorite single line of the Flaming Carrot was "You need me like the Skipper needs Gilligan!" which is not much of a compliment if you think about it.

kurt vonnegut More surrealism! This time surreal science fiction. Kurt Vonnegut made you think about writing the same way Grant Morrison makes you think about comic books (when his brain is not melted). Kurt would set up these bizarre stories that didn't always make linear sense but always made you think. One of the most creepy moments was in Breakfast of Champions where had creatures that saw through time and so people looked like long catterpillers with little baby limbs at one end and old wrinkled limbs at the other.


nobilis Aaron is picking all my cerebral stuff today. Nobilis is the coolest roleplaying game I have yet to ever play. Your characters are mortals, chosen by beings of incredible power to embody concepts for them while they fight a battle beyond this world. A good example would be if the Endless were all mortals chosen by some god to take on the aspects of Dream, Destruction, Desire, Destiny, Death, etc. And you can be ANY concept. I have made characters for PBEM (which never works) which include the power of Winter, the power of Grief, the power of Smiles. All sorts of things. Your characters try to keep your aspect strong (often to the detriment of other powers who may have other plans) as well as fighting Excrutians which are beings who would nulify the universe entirely given the chance. The characters are incredibly powerful, there are examples of "what to do if your players decide to destroy the sun" type things. Its diceless which I like, but as yet it still remains unplayed. The book is pretty though.

texas hold em From the cerebral to the banal. Since americans are getting fat and lazy, poker has been replacing golf as a big networking aspect. I played poker sporadically in high school and college, mostly for chips, and found I was pretty good at it. More recently I have been playing for money. I find that I am much better at cash games than at tournaments. I am always intrigued by the psychology of it all. Its not just math. Knowing someone will break if you bet JUST that much. Bluffing and risk aversion are all very interesting to me.

marx brothers No I am not old enough to remember the Marx Brothers. Groucho died in my lifetime, but just barely. I do however love vaudville. I think it was more spontaneous and funny than television and even more than live theater anymore. There is something pure about vaudville, even if its just geek tricks. They are less polished and performed. The other thing is that Groucho had great wit and ad-libbing humor which I like. George Burns is also high on my list for much the same reason. I feel that there are few of their ilk left, if any. The vaudvillians are extinct. Their fire has gone out of the universe.

white wolf A long time ago I went to GenCon and bought a crappily bound paper back roleplaying game called "Vampire:The Masquerade" I bought it mostly as a joke. There were players in my game who always wanted to play vampires and so I thought this would get it out of their system. Years later, I still played White Wolf games. My Changeling:The Dreaming game was one of my biggest successes and the "Silas Trust" campaign co-written by my wife will go down in the anals of history. I even have writing credits on three of their books: Wraith: The Great War; Mage: Dark Ages; Sorcerer's Crusade Companion. Sadly their fire is also largeyl out of the universe as they more and more fired experienced editors and writers and switched to a freelance system that really gives out uneven product.

So there you have it. Next