In the This Will Surprise No One Category

Funko Pop figures will not survive a four year old boy's "gentle" playing.

Last year I started buying some of the Funko Pop figures whenever something particularly interesting would come into the store. I've traded a couple of them for others and a friend of mine actually gave me the Vault-Tec Funko Bobble-head that came as a LootCrate exclusive a while back. Now I'm not what I would call a collector of the Funko stuff - more just someone who picks one up occasionally. Anyway, I got up this morning and came into the living room to find my wonderful little son playing with two of the Pop figures. Well, what was left of them at any rate.

Ah well, he's 4 and toys are made for playing with, not sitting up on a shelf.

Burn It and Dream of Me.

Since the Great Computer Cleansing, as I've taken to calling it, on Friday I've come to the conclusion that I need to back up all my PDFs on discs so that I don't have to worry about it all getting dumped when I do this again next year. Now if I only had two or three PDFs I wouldn't worry about it but I have quite a bit more. In fact, I have over 70 gigs worth of just PDFs on my computer.

I know what you're saying, "You have a problem, dude. Seriously, why do you have that many? And do you really expect to read all of them?"

First, shut up. I don't have a problem. You have the damned problem.  

Second I have so many because the Internet Archive is the single greatest collection of scanned, downloadable books I've ever run across. I disappear in there about once a month looking for a book on some esoteric topic and come back with twenty or so related books that I can read. Like when I was working on the Cartographer's Toolkit I went in there looking for the Royal Geographer's Society's handbook. I came out with twenty PDFs of their meeting notes, tips, and correspondences.

Look I know it's a . . . thing. But there's something incredibly satisfying about having these books at hand. I mean, let's face it, I may never be able to travel to the Cambridge University to actually look at a real copy of some of these books but I can have a scanned copy on my hard drive. For me that's the next best thing. 

Alright Microsoft, You Prick, Let's Get This On.

So for those of you who don't follow me on Twitter - which I don't understand because I'm fantastic - this weekend saw me taking my computer back to factory reset. Why? Because my Windows operating system was beginning to have all of these hickups. A blue screen here, a run time error there, and then my favorite: explore.exe errors. I consulted with my best friend, who has been working on computers since 1994, and at his advice I went back to the factory preset.

The move has been a good one even though it turns out that doing so had some unforeseen consequences. You know the ones I'm talking about. Like the fact that Microsoft suddenly decided that I had never bought fucking Office Professional, twice, and they wouldn't recognize my right to run it again for two fucking days. Or that I forgot to download all of my bookmarks before I did the dump. Or that it would take me five hours of downloading and installing updates to Windows 8 before I could upgrade to the far, far, far superior Windows 8.1.

It's my own fault that I do these things. 

Anyway expect the Best Reads for March to start appearing late this week early next sometime. I know it's late but there's just so damned much still to do on the computer so that's just the way that things are going to have to go right now. Oh, and mother fucking Steam is the shit. Love the fact that I can just redownload my games when things like this happen. BEST. THING. EVER.

The Hell Am I Eating?

My wife's grandmother is a wonderful woman. She's constantly bringing my wife anything that she thinks she can use, and often things that she's convinced that my wife needs but may never actually use (it's a bit odd when that happens). Anyway, during the ice storms that happened a while back her power was off and she just freaked out that her freezer was going to thaw so I had to rush over to her house to unload it all and shove it into my own. I tried to take it back to her several times, but she informed me that it needed to be eaten so we had best get to it. Today I opened a package that I thought was filled with ribs. It's not ribs. There's meat in it, but that's all that I can really tell you is there. All the same, it's in the slow cooker. Eight hours till I can answer the question: What the hell am I eating.

Sinking in Quicksand, All Alone Without Help at Hand

Lately I've felt like I'm standing still. Do you know what I mean by that?

I don't mean that I'm creatively unfulfilled because currently I've got lots of projects going on and I'm working towards a massive one for later in the year. But I feel like I'm not getting the traction I want. This isn't a permanent state mind you. I know that and it's that knowledge that makes it so damned frustrating.

When I was twenty I went walleye fishing on this river over in the mountains that was flooding. It was so cold that all of us were wearing multiple layers and I can remember my breath hanging in the air in front of me as I made my way down the side of this drop to the valley below. The river was flowing and rolling and all I can remember thinking as I watched it was that if any of us fell in we would be all on our own and quickly racing off to meet our Maker. 

So I'm casting my line in and watching trees wash away while this old boy sings songs of loss and imaginary girls who never returned his love when my line gets pulled. It's a fierce pull that has me almost jerked into the river but I'm able to set my boot in the muddy bank and lean back. My pole is pulled down almost to the grip and I'm reeling in the line as fast as I can watching for a fish that's trying to pull me into the deep because I know that cats are out here and they're big bastards. The reels is squealing as my line keeps letting out and I'm fighting to keep it on the hook because I'm convinced that this is a fish and not some hidden tree attempting to fool me. My arms start getting tired but I'm not stopping because if I do it's gone for sure. 

Then I see it just below the surface. It's a shadow under the rolling, muddy water but it stands out as clear as daylight. I start laughing because this thing's the biggest fish I've ever hooked. Suddenly reeling doesn't feel as hard because the son of a bitch is right there, right under the surface; and that's when I can see him look at me. It's like the whole time he was just heading this way and mildly annoyed that his lip stung but when he sees me it dawns on him that I'm trying to catch him. So then he turns, flicks his tail, and snaps my line. 

I land square on the flat of my ass and start laugh all over again because while everyone else is just casting their lines out time and time again I've actually gotten a bite and he was fucking huge! Then I look at my reel and my line is wrecked. I can see the threads on my line where its worn away at from the pressure and strain. So I start restringing the line when the Game Marshals come up on us and start check all our fishing licenses. I hand them mine and keep on working on the line because the sun's starting to set and we're leaving when it starts getting dark because that drop we came down was nearly a half mile at a ridiculous pitch that looking back at it made me wonder why we came down here at all. 

The Marshals take off and I'm heading down the side of this river trying to find a good spot to cast when is see this shallow little stream. It's nothing. Just a tenth of an inch of water trickling along so I don't even think about stepping into it. Well it got my attention when my right leg sunk all the way up to my thigh and I'm doing the splits. I'm stuck and I'm kind of embarrassed because who the fuck wants to have that happen?

All the same I'm stuck there trying to figure out my next move. My Dad's about a quarter of a mile back behind me and my cousin's another quarter ahead of me on the bank fishing. I could shout out for help, and they'd probably hear me, but then I'd have to listen to them give me shit for the next couple of hours and that's not fucking happening. I manage to get my leg that was laid out behind me across the muck and onto the far shore after about twenty minutes of struggling. I'm slowly pushing myself out of the much when my boot gets caught and starts trying to come off my foot. By this point I'm so fucking frustrated I can't see so I just stop what I'm doing and slide my foot better into the boot and lay back against the ground.

That's what I'm fucking talking about when I say I feel like I'm standing still. I'm stuck and frustrated because I know what to do but right now it just isn't working out the way that I want it to. 

Deep breaths kids, deep breaths.

You're Talking Out the Side of Your Neck

As I've gotten older I've become more direct and less willing to engage in esoteric  arguments with people who are over their heads in the debate. It really got started back when I was going to college for a philosophy degree. 

See in the philosophy department you get a lot of different types of people but really only a couple of attitudes from the hardcore philosophy nerds. You've got your "I'm so much better and smarter than the rest of you mothers" neck-beards who know no more about what's going on than can they tell the difference between a hole in the ground and their assholes.  Then there are the cats who are trying to find themselves and think developing a personal philosophy will be the answer to all their internal struggles. Mostly good kids there and that's a good thing since they make up the majority of the department. Then you have the folks who know themselves too well and underestimate what they're capable of and as a result never make any waves. If you're wondering I feel into the second category and as a result the neck-beards tended to look down on me (as they do with the majority of the world). To them if I wasn't proclaiming to the whole world how brilliant I was then I couldn't be all that damned smart so they would attempt to bait me into these debates where they thought I would be out of my depth. Problem is, even though I'm funny and like to talk about silly shit, I'm smarter than they thought I was - still am. 

Anyway, these dumb bastards would come talking down to me about Foucault, or who ever happened to be the trendy philosopher of the week (way too often it would be Sartre), and they expected me to sit there with a slack jaw in awe of their intellectual superiority. My usual response began with, "No, you're wrong." From there I would begin to break their points as they would imperiously make these idiotic pronouncements. Eventually the conversations would end with them storming off talking about how I just didn't understand the depth of their arguments while the other philosophy majors laughed about them making an ass out of themselves. 

As you can imagine I developed a reputation.

For a while I thought that I was doing something important because I was a dumb kid who thought that arguing with assholes about shit that doesn't matter made me important. It would be a few years, and take an awesome experience of working in the highest pressure environment I've ever experienced, before I fully moved away from that attitude. That doesn't mean that I don't still argue with assholes who come along peacocking and pretending that they're so damned smart that they can't believe they're having to sully their hands with our shit. I totally still do that. The difference is that once I've figured out that someone is a fucking moron, who's trying to prove how smart they really aren't, I just move on. I haven't the time to waste on that shit anymore.

Well, That Vacation Sucked.

For those of you wondering where I've been for the majority of last week, well, read the title. I was on vacation. You know, that thing where you go to rest and look at scantily clad people and hope that sexy pants action will fall into your lap so that you can rhythmically rub yourself against a stranger and hope that terrible things will not come out of your body while you do?

No? 

What the fuck are you doing with your life then Holmes?

Anyway, this vacation blew donkey dicks by the dozens. First my car decided to start throwing up the "low coolant" warning light even though I've got plenty of coolant. I've been able to diagnose this problem down to three locations: the Water Pump (which I've already replaced and have tested to make sure it works), the Radiator Cap, and the Thermostat. I wasn't able to take the car along with me up the Mountain but after talking with a couple of mechanics I'm friends with the likely culprit (since the water pump is working correctly and the oil isn't looking funky) is the Cap/Thermostat. I'm trying the Cap first since the seal looks like shit and hopefully that will take care of it. That said it could very well be the Thermostat which isn't the most difficult thing I've ever replaced on the car but is going to be a new one on me. 

So that happened right after I wrote the Sunday Vacation announcement. On Tuesday my wife and I went down into the valley to take our son to the Zoo. This was the first time we had taken him to a major zoo so my wife was suuuuuuuuuppppppppeeeeeerrrrrrr hyped about the experience. I thought it was too early in the year to be going but it was the first pretty day of Spring so guess who was at the park. Anyway, all the cool African animals were put up still put up but the Asian monkeys more than made up for it as far as my son was concerned.

The trip back though, holy shit. 

Okay, you all know how we've been hit by a couple of ice storms over here in January and February? Well the roads are completely fucked right now. We were driving back on the interstate, which is usually smooth as glass in our state, and it was like driving on some back woods, gravel road. East bound wasn't so bad, but West bound was terrible. The road was cracked everywhere and parts of it were dipping down so low that it felt like the ground underneath had been washed away. Oh, and the pot holes! Lord have mercy there were so many pot holes that my wife's blazer vibrated so badly that the check engine light kicked on with warnings about our antilock braking, gas tank, and emissions - all of which went away once we were on better roads and the car stopped shaking. 

Then my Aunt died. 

Earlier this year my Uncle D. passed. His health had been deteriorating for a while but when he passed it came after he had bounced back so many times that we were all really shocked by it. My brother and I were pretty devastated by it because he was a big part of both our lives. Well on Thursday his wife, my Aunt R., passed. Unlike my Uncle D. this was far more of a relief. She had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease - which is just the most terrible disease I've ever seen because it robs you of everything and leaves you a frightened, lonely shell of the person you once were. So when we heard that she had passed, for me at least, it was a feeling of relief. Relief that she wouldn't suffer with that terrible disease any longer and that she would be with my Uncle D. again.

Anyway this meant that Saturday I was a pallbearer again for the second time this year. The funeral was fast and the graveside service was too. They had us pick up tulips and asked that we plant them in her memory. I planted it in my Dad's flower bed along the front porch. Then we got a $300.00 gas bill that found my wife and the gas company representative going six rounds until the Rep won on a technicality and we're paying the fucking bill. Such things make the world go round I'm told.

So how was your week?

Putting Her Down and Other Misadventures from the Weekend

On Friday the boy and I went up the mountain to see my Mom and Dad. It was the first time that we had gone up the old highway since the ice storms hit our area in February and was it ever a surprise. The woods that lined either side of the road looked like a tornado had blow through rather than just an ice storm! And every so often we'd round a corner and find a tree leaning precariously across a power line, causing it to sag dangerously low. Still the roads were clear so we made it to Mom and Dad's without any delays.

When I went up earlier it was only for a night to help my wife's Grandmother so we didn't really get a good look at all the damage at my parents' home. Well, this weekend we did.

The driveway, which I had cleared a large portion of earlier, now had even more limbs in it as the Oak, Maple, and Pines had shaken loose more limbs. I was able to move all of the ones in the drive but the ones in the island (Mom and Dad have a circle drive) were too big to even attempt. The back yard is going to take weeks to clean up.

All the same this weekend marked the beginning of that process. So I got the yard cleared, wrote two articles that should be going up in the weeks over on EN World, worked on one that I'm doing in conjunction with +Sean Bircher, +Jens D., and +Stelios V. Perdios that will be going up this week. Oh, and I started working on Project X which is going to be awesome when it completes. And then my car decided that it hated me and everyone who looks like me.

Oh, oh, oh! I know I mentioned this the other day but I got Civilization V Complete and holy shit is that game a time suck! Seriously a good game but it's got some drawbacks that came expressly because they decided that they wanted to change things for the sake of change and not because they wanted to make the experience better. I'll talk more about that later because it's too much for right now. 

So, how was your weekend?

Winter Can Bite Me

Thursday evening I got a phone call from my wife's grandmother that began with her a bit frantic and ended with her crying. Her power has been off for nearly two weeks and just when it seemed like she was about to have some relief they had to cut it off because the power lines coming into her home were being crimped something terrible. Off we head up the mountain to see if there's anything we can do to make her life a bit better. 

The next morning we're on our way back to the house and find out that a tree limb has fallen from the Tulip Poplar and has smashed our satellite internet (which we have because there are no other options). So here I am trying to get it repaired when I get a call from one of my players and closest friends, Biggboy, who's telling me that they just had all the water shut down in the county because the lines are leaking so much that it's flooding a couple of intersections. He hasn't had power in two weeks either because the snow and ice has hit the mountain like a tornado only the damage is far worse and he can't leave because his Dad threw his back out trying to help his Mom in the door. We're talking about ways to get him some relief because when you're the primary caregiver for your parents there are no days off and the snow has meant that there aren't any chances for him to get away when my son decides that it's a great time to go running outside in his diaper and gloves. Because god-damn-it, that's what big boys do!

Anger By Tuhin

I tried to do the Friday Artfest but the Blogger App is about as useful as taking a nail and driving it into your dick. Only the nail would give you something to enjoy as the the App would just delete everything you've spent the last two hours trying to type out on a 1 1/2" screen. Oh, and then I spent three fucking hours working on the Best Reads before I gave up and it published it when it told me it saved it instead. Stupid fucking app.

Anyway, they got the satellite fixed this morning so here's hoping that we don't have another fucking storm that knocks it out again.

So Damned Much to Learn Before the First Step is Taken

I don't know if I've mentioned it on here before or not but I'm working on building a YouTube channel that will be mostly me playing and reviewing video games. Both aspects of the project are daunting as there's so much that I have to get ready before I begin actually putting content out on the net. 

I mean it isn't like blogging. That makes sense, right? 

I tried downloading the US Copyright primer that's been put out by the Feds but that thing is a massive beast that makes my head spin as I slowly work my way through page after page of self referencing legal jargon. I'm also going through YouTube's class things. Will it tell me everything I need to worry about? Of course not. But if it can keep me out of really hot water then I want to learn about it first. 

There's just so damned much to learn. 

Depression McGee and Other Minor Tramas

Suffering from a minor bout of depression kids. Nothing to worry yourselves with as I'll get over it quickly enough. Just kind of lethargic today. Oh, and my son destroyed his room with vomit and diarrhea last night.

THE JOYS OF PARENTHOOD ARE LIMITLESS.

I'm Drinking At the Tavern!

Actually it's more like I've written a post that Tenkar was nice enough to put up!

I had thought about writing a post that discussed why we should abandon our European adventure settings and instead start exploring the surrounding world we live in because that's far more interesting. I started working on that article a couple of weeks ago focusing on the wide variety of options available based on just looking at what's around you and using things like abandoned mines and under-cities as the inspiration for your future games.

Then I got bored. 

So I decided to write about one of my games where things went off the rails after my part was done. It was a hell of a lot more fun to write so I completely abandoned the other post. I submitted it to Erik and he posted it this morning. So far it's gotten three comments:

Venger Santis: "Is flash fiction what you had in mind for guest posters, Erik?"

Fore Shame: "Nope, I don't get it."

and

Charles Akins: "Me either."

Seems to me like I'm winning the internet this morning! Hope you guys and gals enjoy that post as much as they did!

One Dead Ogre and Four Bruised Egos!

She Keeps Telling Me That I Don't Understand

In Bed: The Kiss by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1892

Timmy was nearly my height, though slightly shorter and far thinner. He looked like one of those hipster children you find wondering the streets at night smoking clove cigarettes and trying to sound far more interesting then they really wore. Only unlike those kids Timmy hated cloves and preferred to chain smoke menthol camels as he paced and talked his way through life. On a cold night like tonight it made him look like a human steam engine barreling along without a track or hope. "She keeps telling me that I don't understand what she's gone through," he was saying this night, "like it's impossible for me to know what it's like to have shitty parents or to watch someone die and you can't do anything about it."

I watched him hit the end of the sidewalk and turn back as I sipped whiskey directly from the bottle. Have you considered that she might mean something more than just her terrible life story?

"You make her sound like she's a character in a play."

We're all characters in a play, Tim. Always have been.

He stopped pacing, "How much have you had to drink."

Drink? I'm a teetotaler and your suggestion that I might be imbibing the devil's brew highly offends my delicate sensibilities, I said as I took another sip. Go on with you diatribe before I rise up from this bench and address your uncouth manners with pistols at dawn.

He smiled, "She doesn't believe that I can understand what it's like to have people use you for what's between your legs."

That's a rather unkind assessment of what you're packing. 

"I know, right? I told her that I'm a highly sought after male specimen and that there were women throwing themselves at me on a daily basis."

So you lied to her in the hopes that she wouldn't remember how desperate you were to get her pants off?

"Well yeah."

Did she fall for it?

"No," he said with mock outrage as he lit another cigarette. "Instead she just roller her eyes, took off her pants, and laid down on the back seat of the car."

That one has a giving soul.

"She does at that," he said with a laugh, "I only wish that laying with her was worth the time and effort."

Rather an uncharitable characterization of the only woman who's allowed you to pull that disgusting thing out of your pants without laughing at you. 

"I know, but you just don't know what it's like to constantly be told that you don't understand. I understand plenty - more than she's likely to ever encounter."

Don't be a fool. He stared at me with a bit of shock in his face. You're talking about a woman that's going into the army and we're at war. She's going to see more terribleness in the coming months than you've ever dreamed of - no matter how many opium dens and crack houses you explore. 

He attempted a half-hearted waving me off and said, "I know. I know. I tried to get her to stay. I told her that she didn't have to go off into the deserts all the way across the world to kill people when her leaving was killing me here."

I handed him the bottle as I said, What did she say to that?

"The only thing you're killing is my vibe."

Bitch don't kill my vibe, I sang.

"This isn't funny. My heart is breaking and I don't know what to do."

Hearts break, I said as he handed me back the bottle. It's an inevitable side effect of being alive and human. You find a woman who'll let you do all the horrible things you've been reading about in the Penthouse forum for the last decade and then she has to go and let you develop feelings for her. 

"A damned, dirty trick."

It is at that. 

Now you start thinking about taking her home and asking her to stay for longer than the night. Only she'd rather be climbing into the arms of some Fabio impersonator who has about as much personality as he has chest hair because his arms are muscular and his steroid shriveled cock is hidden behind those tight leather pants. 

"Are we still talking about me?"

I'm sharing too much again, aren't I?

I Have No Words to Offer

I wanted to post the next part of the story I'm currently writing but I've been absolutely consumed by the news coming out of Ferguson. This is a clear cut case of the police acting way out of line. We don't detain journalist; we don't threaten them; and we damned sure don't shoot tear gas at them and then follow that up with non-leathal rounds to drive them away so we can seize their equipment. All of these officers need to be investigated and those that participated in these unconstitutional acts need to be stripped of their positions.

Reporters under attack by Ferguson County Police and then having their equipment seized

You're in the Untied States of America and you're supposed to serve and protect the citizens of your community. You're supposed to be the good guys. Put down the sniper rifles, automatic weapons, and fucking act like it.

Oh, Friday Nights!

We were out back throwing baseballs at a tin roof pane when Racecar started laughing at me, "Charlie, you couldn't throw that ball in a straight line if I put a hundred dollars on it."

Is that a bet?

"No," he said as he emphaticlly shook his head. "I'm not fool enough to test you when it comes to having money on the line. Besides, we both know it wouldn't be a fair contest."

I stood up and sent a spiraling ball into the bull's eye. You're probably right on that one. So what are we doing tonight? Your Grandma asked if I could stay late.

"We're going to the track!"

We're running?

"No you dink," he said with an eye roll, "we're going to the dirt track to watch our cars!"

You have cars?

"Come on," he said as he stomped over to the big barn. The barn was what a proper one is supposed to look like. Big, sliding door at the front; red paint with white trim. Nothing at all like the dilapidated thing that stood just at the edge of our yard. Since the first time I had seen it I had been convinced that there wouldn't be a gigantic wasp nest in its loft or deadly snakes slithering through it. 

I'll be damned if I wasn't right. 

As Racecar opened the alley door I gave a whistle. Inside were two beautiful open wheeled race cars (which I could only recognize because he was always drawing them). Each was painted to match Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s car - and they had sponsor tags too. Bumper stickers of shops that I had visited and those I never knew existed were slapped haphazardly about the bodies of each of these cars. Racecar climbed in one and I raced to do the same in the other car. 

This is the coolest thing

"I know, right? And can you believe that we're going to get to watch them tonight!"

That evening we went down to the track and watch six hours of cars turning left on a dirt track that turned my white shirt into a reddish brown mess.  The noise was deafening and the smell tremendous. I loved it. Race after race found me and Racecar alternating between screaming at the top of our lungs and stuffing dollar burgers down our throats. I got to see a demolition derby, open wheels, and then I got to see the sprint cars. Those were fun to watch as they careened about the track, digging these massive ruts behind them.  Then I got to watch grown men fight each other with wrenches and a policeman fire his gun into the air. 

What more could a ten year old boy ask for?

I got to go to several of those races over the next few years but Racecar and I were growing apart so we spent less and less time together. In the end I think that it was my fault as I decided that it was hard to be such good friends with someone who thought there was something admirable in not reading - and something unnatural about reading as much as I was. So I started chasing beautiful girls and playing kissey face with them when they let me catch up while he drifted off into his world of race cars and motor oil. Our priorities shifted further once I realized you could do more with a girl than spend your money on her and kiss. 

Silently Hating You as You Breath Through Your Mouth

Thursday

I wake up to find that our internet is off and my son has learned how to perform a perfect stiff arm. I call the provider while he runs about the living room hitting the dog with a toy golf club. He keeps screaming that the dog is bad and I smile as he does and say, You're right buddy. That's a bad dog.

Glad I wrote a post in the queue early.

I go vote and 14 of my picks win. I celebrate by drinking a bottle of wine and whispering dark secrets to the stars overhead while I read through the comments on Lord, Forgive Me. I'm Talking About Politics. Go to bed very happy and remember why I loved blogging about politics back in 2000. Sometimes I miss it and tonight is one of those nights where I trace back old arguments with friends I've long lost touch with. It's sligthly bitter-sweet but then I've been drinking.

Tomorrow will be better, I whisper to the night as the storms break overhead. Tomorrow will be better. 

Friday 

The earth has been ravaged by a beautiful storm. The two lovers have carassed each other and torn clothing is scattered everywhere. This is a much better way to talk about cleaning up broken limbs than the actual process.

 

I still miss having 25 trees in the front yard and watching their limbs shake with rage at a stormy sky. 

My internet is back but I'm off on the road and trying to figure out what my lovely wife and I are going to do to celebrate her birthday. I propose hunting dinosaurs in the Amazon. She counters with Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles. 

It's her birthday so we go see the movie. I was pleasantly surprised that the movie was the best one since the original. Less things for the audience to overlook and better dialogue. Worth seeing if you're so inclined.

Saturday

On the road again and chasing the specters of my youth as we cross the state for my niece's 5th birthday. My son sings gentle songs in his car seat and tells me stories in a language that I fail to recognize but can't help loving all the same. 

I pop on G+ for a little bit and begin to wonder if the people fighting over Zak and the RPG Pundit really believe everything they've written or if this has crested into an Orwellian orgy of pseudo-cultural awareness where the issue isn't nearly as important as being seen talking about the issue.

Belief is a strange thing and I find false beliefs disquieting. 

Scrolling through my feed I find myself trying to keep up with more than forty conversations at once. My wife giggles at me as I am constantly scrolling through my phone to keep up with it all. I finally put the phone down and announce, I am clearly not meant for an internet age.

Sunday

Back home but I've woken up with a heart filled with rage. I'm angry at the world and angry at people I've never met for being so damned foolish. I cancelled the game of Dungeons and Dragons I had been planning on running today because I was not fit for company. 

I've started working on the first WTF article. A few things I've learned since I asked for suggestions (see Topic Suggestions for the WTF Series for more): none of the suggested topics can be done in a single evening if I want to do them justice; and I find myself appreciating Jeff Grubb more and more as the years go by. Dude's just good for this hobby.

More later.

Lord, Forgive Me. I'm Talking About Politics.

I started voting with my parents when I was four years old. My mother would take me into the booth and she would have me pull these little switches for each candidate that she was voting for and then at the end she would let me pull this massive lever that would punch the voter card. Every election my brother and I would go in with one of our parents and vote. When I got old enough to drive I started campaigning for people I liked. I met state representatives and senators; their national versions too. I even sat on the Lt. Governor's desk and told him a dirty joke. 

I've voted in every primary and election since I was of age. It's important that I keep active because as turnouts continue to decline my vote's importance continues to increase. So when I tell you that I'm going to vote in a primary against a man I want you to understand that it's because I've got an extremist in the running and I won't ignore his foolish attacks against a reasonable man.

Politics doesn't mean zealot-like partisanship. It means compromise; where each of us work together to get things done. Politics is a great thing. It gave us roads, schools, and has helped us take care of those who couldn't take care of themselves. But it only works when we have people who believe in the system and are willing to work with each other.

We need reasonable people who will work together. We need people who remember that they're adults and that an argument about an issue isn't a personal attack. We need people who understand that there are actual repercussions for the reality that they want to see enacted through regulations and laws. 

I'm voting today because I am against a man who believes that politics is personal. He believes that we shouldn't pay for anything. That we shouldn't honor our debts and that we shouldn't work across the aisle. I'm voting against a fool in favor of a reasonable man.

Why So Quite Over There?

I realized this morning that from Thursday night to Sunday I wrote twelve posts and since I've only written two. Why? 

My son. 

So far we've attacked the dog, conquered the vacuum cleaner, killed the spider what did crawl on the wall, broken a train that the salesman swore couldn't be, sang dirty songs in a nonsensical language that threatens the sanity of passersby, and waged cruel war against the potty. He has a list of demands for the refrigerator that if not met by this time tomorrow will find it on the end of his wrath. 

I am waiting relief friends. 

Don't Cross This Line. Okay, Don't Cross This Line.

When I first started running Dungeons and Dragons I wanted to be the best Dungeon Master that anyone had ever played under. I read what blogs there were on the subject, scoured forums, and listened to all the Dungeon Masters I knew as they told me their 'secrets.' I hoped that by doing all of this research that I would be able to be as great a Dungeon Master as I imagined all these others were. 

After spending nearly two years researching different styles of Dungeon Mastering I discovered what I thought was a hidden truth. The best and most exciting games I had been involved in, and read about, all had Dungeon Masters who seemingly never said the word "No." When the realization hit me I decided that I would never refuse my players; and like a fool I announced my decision to my players. They smiled at me and I had the sinking feeling that I had just fucked up.

The next night the gloves came off. They murdered and tortured their way though the underground kingdom of Goblins. It was a game within the game with my players attempting to find something that would force me to stop saying yes. 

In the end, as a group, we discovered that the lines none of us would cross should have been obvious to all of us from the beginning: rape and harm to little kids. Since that time there have been a few other points where I didn't like what was going on and stopped it - like the time one of the players was getting picked on through the game - but in general those are the two lines that none of us are willing to cross.

What about you? What things in your games are the lines in the sand that you won't cross?

Down with Your Oppressive Cool

I was sitting in the living room flipping through the latest issue of Juxtapoz while a friend of mine raged against the lack of originality in the world today. "The god damned, myopic intellectuals will be the death of us," he growled out. "They sit up there in those academic towers and postulate from up on high to tell us how to live."

Mmm.

"You know it's the fucking truth. While we're down here in the trenches of everyday life they're still living through books and view reality with this distorted lens where every answer can come from a book. Life doesn't work like that!" 

I think - 

"What, what do you fucking thing?"

I think that the problem with you is that you're the biggest fucking hipster in the history of mankind and you keep looking for something substantial in your life but can't stay with anything long enough to enjoy it because the minute someone else likes it, you move on. 

"People ruin everything."

You ruin everything by being like that. If you want to enjoy life you need to remember that the only person who matters is you when it comes to liking things. Who the fuck cares if Hot Topic is selling Deadpool.

"Those sons of bitches! I'll torch their fucking stores to the ground!"