How the vampire game went

The vampire game didn't end up getting rained out. Instead we played over at a friend of mine's house. While this location was not the one I was hoping for, originally we were going to be in park by a graveyard, It did end up being better for the game as a whole as I think everyone was in a much more relaxed atmosphere, and there happened to be a bottle of Jameson's at the location that I unfortunately imbibed of much more than I should have. This opinion is based more on how much of the Jameson's I drank and less on my personal conduct, I managed to avoid acting like a ridiculous ass in other words. 

We also picked up a brand-new player who managed to make a character primarily on his own and figured out the system well enough to make a character that many of the other players considered overpowered or broken. Personally I thought this was an awesome achievement and was very happy that this player got to use a character like that. As a result he was the star of the show. This is always a great thing for a new player to experience and while it may have taken away from the other players time everyone enjoyed watching his antics so much that I think it balances out into the positive.

The other awesome thing was that I learned that Dragon dictation software is actually free app through the Apple app store. Which is how I'm writing this now, and also explains the length and verbosity of this post as opposed to how I usually write. Usually the dictation I've been using is the built-in Apple software and I end up trading between the dictation and actually typing which is why it sounds a little weird. The Dragon now breathes my words of mysticism and enchantment upon all of you, be warned, you are all doomed to read my actual speaking habits dictated in text (menacing laugh).

Saturday post or things that couldn't wait for Monday

So today I will be wandering back into the old World of Darkness through live action role-playing (LARP). Unless the game is cancelled due to the rain that the weather prophets are calling for. There is supposed to be lightning too, and we're playing in a park right next to a cemetery.          

I can't think of a better outdoor venue and perceive this as good fortune. I suspect the general weakness of the flesh and people not bothering to prepare for the eventuality of rain will shorten game, but I am hopeful. Even if the vampire game goes kaput, I will still go do some time as a secret agent in Ingress and hack me some portals. So today is looking like a win regardless of whatever life and other people do.

The only bad thing for me about rain is possible damage to my phone and e-cig. Buying a umbrella may become a priority considering my tendency to play with electronics outdoors, only time will tell. I would say having to choose between looking sweet in my trench coat or riding my bike is a problem as well, but I really do own a sweet looking trench coat (vanity 1 exercise 0). 

Maybe I will take a picture of me and my sweet coat out in our element today. Yum.

Oh to spend a weekend here

Yes sir, give me two bags of Soylent, two gallons of water, a dozen candles, an unlined notebook, and I will happily wander these halls over a weekend.

 Garlic, silver bullets, these things are for those afraid of the night. My demons have made me immune to such paltry fears. I seek only the beautiful essence of this place, and I am the best choice to find it.

My epitaph if I should not return? Tell them I walked willing with a requiem in my heart and dreams in my head. Tell them I went so others would not have to. Tell them I finally went home.

It's hard being sad most of the time.

This isn't a cry for help but simply me going through a moment and sorting it out. You may find this depressing so continue reading at your own peril.

There is the steady possibility of me being sad about nothing or anything at any and every moment of my life. I was told at a young age that I had seasonal chronic depression. I can only take the doctor's word for this, because I don't have any qualifications to diagnose such a disease. I can tell you about what it is like to be me day to day, and how I feel about some of the things I have seen.

Before getting into all of that I want to explain chronic seasonal depression as it was explained to me. Picture a black line stretching out unwaveringly. This is our baseline for human emotion, it is neither happy or sad it is simply where the average person starts from. 

Now picture a blue line stretching out one inch to the right of the black line. This is our baseline for the emotional state of wanting to kill ones self, or extreme depression. Everything in between is varying degrees of sadness.

Now picture a red line a quarter of an inch to the right of the black line. This is me, because I like the color red and it's my line diagram. It also represents my baseline emotional state or where I start from. This is what I was told chronic depression is like visually. It also means it is harder for me to reach a state of contentment than the average person, much less being happy, but wait there's more.

The seasonal part means that I get a special bout of major depression roughly every three months. Going back to the visual example, picture the lines traveling along for about four inches. At the three inch mark my red line goes from being a quarter of an inch right of the black line all the way to the blue line, you know the one that can result in death. Some times it lasts for a couple of days and sometimes it goes for weeks, but eventually it goes back to being the less than happy standard of being just kinda sad again. You could say that the excitement of terror is built into my brain and that I am blessed with the inability to be bored for very long. Don't say that, it will make me unhappy with you to say the least.

So one of the certain constants in my life as a result of this is if I can't find a reason to get out of bed in the morning I don't. One of the things writing in this blog helps me do is find that reason. Granted most of the time I lay naked in bed and simply shout at my iPhone to write my entry, but it is the very first thing I do. Even before the basic urge of a morning piss.

Even the need to piss can't trump the urge to lay in bed sometimes. I have literally been so upset upon waking that the thought of dying, so that I don't have to get up, seems better than reliving myself. Writing this blog gets me past that sadness in a way basic biology won't, because of the hope it gives me.

A faint hope that out there, in internet land, there are people who read the things I have to say and might miss me. I know some of my friends read these posts to break up the monotony of their day at work and they like me, but damn it is hard to remember that most of the time. Another fun constant of my condition or disease or whatever the fuck modern psychology is calling it this year.

I have lots more to say on this subject but for now I am going to leave you with a picture of kitties, because kitties are good and happy things. Also I need to feed my fish. Fun fact: fish owners are the most happy of all the different pet owners according to statistical polls. I laughed long and hard when I read that fun little factoid.

Woke up late have a picture

Memorial Day

Go do something besides read the internet. 

Giant evil gods

I really like the movie Cabin in the Woods. There's something about the premise of humanity having sacrificed young adults/children over centuries to appease great evil deities that will crush the planet that appeals to me. Must be the miles wide optimistic nihilism that seems to run through me.

Something in me finds it very comforting that if nothing else, someday the sun will expand into a red giant and swallow the earth. This probably won't happen in my lifetime, but still comforting for me to think about. The idea of eternal existence, while amusing to me to toy with, seems like it would be a terrible bore in the long run.

Despite how quickly things change technologically, and to a lesser extent sociologically, much of day-to-day existence is quite repetitive in the current norm of our society. There are two real cures for this. The first is through an act of creation, which is not as easy as you would think. Most of what we call creative isn't truly new, but a recombination of existing things that appears new to us. Something truly new and creative is far rarer. Honestly I can't think of anything recent that wasn't either prophesied through fiction or is directly related to something previous. Maybe this is a lacking on my part, and if anyone can point to something please post it in the comments below.

The second is active destruction. This happens every day on our planet and in the rest of the universe. New life is fertilized by the destruction of old and the cycle continues. It's very Buddhist in its cycle, and may be the true answer to existence.

I'm done now, but for the record, most of this was dictated while I was finishing a bottle of tequila. Feel free to disregard if necessary.

Flag burning: A shrug worthy offense

Recently I've been hearing about people being outraged over the American flag being burned by other people. The most sensible thing I have seen concerning this was one person found the specific law concerning this activity and posted it on Facebook. The rest is tiring chest beating and posturing about a situation that is likely to continue because of said posturing.

When a flag is burned nothing happens other than the flag being burnt. There seems to be a reaction based on the belief that America is somehow harmed or disrespected by such an action. I can understand that interpretation even as I reject it.

I reject it because I see flagburning for what it really is, trolling America. The only way to handle trolling is to ignore it and therefore starve the troll. I personally don't feel any need to waste my time or energy rallying against flagburning. I will likely never own a T-shirt with an American flag and the words 'try to burn this one' on it.

You may think this makes me unpatriotic or lazy in my defense of America, but I see the much greater threats to America in the country I love. Things like cutting the snap program, cutting funding to music and art departments in schools, enslaving college students with egregious amounts of debt, cutting medical benefits for seniors, not giving our veterans the help and treatment they need in a timely manner, lack of infrastructure funding, wasteful spending on war machines we don't need, the Koch brothers, The citizens United decision, fracking, black men being killed by police, irresponsible banking practices, climate change, and that is just the things I can think of off the top of my head that I give more shit about then whether or not some dumbass burns an American flag.

So like I said before, flagburning is a shrug worthy offence.

Still busy

Still running across the desert.

Suddenly busy

I'm short for time today so I give you pictures of what I'm writing today.

Our quite terrified hero

is running through the 

racing the

to the 

to save himself and his friends.

Those parks are the white man's

So last night at work I was explaining to a friend of mine that I'd been up to the wetlands park here near Bozeman. He misunderstood me and thought I was saying the white man's park. We got a good laugh out of this and then I explained to him that all parks are the white man's parks. This garnered a surprised look from him, so naturally I had to explain my reasoning.

In my limited knowledge of history I am only aware of one group who has gone out of its way to make sure that certain natural areas needed to remain unspoiled. Yellowstone national park was the first official park (1872). Since then many other countries have declared areas national parks as well. This was done primarily by predominantly white nations for the first century, but the rest of the world has gotten on board with this project.

Now this worldwide project is considered a noble one by many, but that kind of backslapping self congratulating bullshit doesn't really sit right with me. Let's be honest, the real reason the park system had to be implemented was to remind us (white people) to not exploit every inch of the planet. The American Indian didn't need a reminder. The Australian aborigines didn't need a reminder. The Mongolian steppe tribes didn't need a reminder. Just white folk, because somewhere in the collected Anglo history we forgot the value of respecting the land.

Without waxing to poetic about how Mother Nature nurtures all of us it, is worthy to remember that if we don't take care of the planet it won't be there for future generations. It might not even last in its current state within our lifetimes, but let's not congratulate ourselves for something we should have always been doing.

Thus all parks are the white man's parks. Though not strictly for the white man's use.

Sand worms

I have never finished a Dune book or movie. I've definitely watched parts and they've made an impact, but it wasn't one of those stories where I cared about the characters. The world itself, the idea of the spice, the worms, and the dueling fields are all that really stuck with me.

I like the idea of massive creatures representing natures might. Characters that work with these creatures for a purpose to defeat encroaching threats is theme that I enjoy. I don't have a vision for a whole story surrounding this idea, but I think I can come up with a short scene or three for an upcoming game. 

That's my brainstorm for the morning.

Oh Thursday

So I don't have much today. My girlfriend is going out of town for a week and I'm going to miss her quite a bit while she's gone. Today is the long day at work, and I'm starting to think that Thursdays are just bad for me trying to write in the morning. So here's a picture that really doesn't have anything to do with anything I am working on right now, but I like it and figured I should share with the rest of you.

It's an art day

Last week I posted a picture of a bayou because I was looking for inspiration for a story there. The same little town has a great Savannah stretching into the plains  east of it. So instead of finishing the vampire comparison I'm going to be writing about some of the adventures I can picture in a place like this. At the very least I will make notes about them and work the narrative towards those notes.

Vampires: seductive euro-trash or plague of humanity

Lets clarify these terms first.


Seductive Euro-Trash refers to the type of vampire that is considered high class. They often have trappings of fine clothing and live in places that are best described as estates. Rarely do they show their monstrous nature, and often there is at least one of the vampires who loathes their new state. They are almost universally from Europe and are often looking for something new here in the 'colonies'. These vampires are usually looking for love or acceptance of some kind. These are also the vampires that might turn someone into a vampire as a special companion.


Plague of humanity, refers to the vampires that are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Their origin is rarely developed other than to explain they are vampires of some kind. They kill and then kill and then just to mix things up they maim before killing. This is when we see vampires used in a typical movie monster role. Often we will get some brief explanation into the psyche of this type of vampire in the form of a  Darwinian quip, 'the strong prey on the weak,' or something similar. So we know that they are intelligent, but have given up what might have been left of their humanity.

Both are effective at their intended purpose, but which is better. For me it's the plague type. I just don't like that the romanization of the vampire makes us forget they're monsters. The plague type are more honest that way, rarely would someone want to be a vampire from 30 days of night.

I'm not saying that seductive vampires don't have a place in stories. They demonstrate a different kind of evil or bad guy when used in a more seductive role. It's when being the vampire is shown to just be more awesome than actually being human that kind of gets on my nerves. It devalues being human, which if you don't think is awesome I suggest you spend more time actually watching people around you. 

So that's my general thoughts on the two types of vampires. I'd like to point out that I think Bram Stoker's Dracula is a good moderate vampire. He is both a monster and a seducer. We can feel sorry for him even as we feel relief at his perishing. In my opinion this is the vampire story that still hasn't been topped, because it handles the duality so well. 

Okay really, I'm done now.

The God question

For those who don't know, I do believe in God. What exactly God is, is a question I don't have an answer to. It may seem strange to say that, but this is kind of thing I think you feel as much as you can know. Similar to how we can feel and know about love and death.

I am not intending to assert that atheists or agnostics are wrong in their beliefs. I'm simply trying to explain my own, and hopefully gain a better understanding of my beliefs myself by writing them out. I do have issues with certain types of people exposing these two belief ideologies, but that kind of person also exposes the beliefs of many other faiths as well. I can talk about them in a whole other  post some other time.

In a previous post titled, I got nothing, I explained that I once had a conversation with God. I am very aware of how that makes me sound to most people. Still at the very least I believe it happened and this is the very brief synopsis of what happened to me.

At the time I was an intravenous drug user, specifically methamphetamines, but I wasn't opposed to putting other things in my veins either. I wouldn't say life was good, but after having lived like this for about a year I was well-adjusted to the life of an addict. Truthfully I'm not sure I would've ever changed if not for the following events.

I was sitting on the sink of a bathroom in a hotel room getting setup for my morning fix for the day before going to work. My feet were firmly planted on top of the toilet seat while all my paraphernalia was lined up carefully on the back of the toilet itself. I went through the same steps that I went through every other day. Take diabetic needle out of the jar of rubbing alcohol I left it in from the night before. Scrape fine sandpaper along the needle's point to resharpen it. Tie off with my belt and wait for a vein, while mixing the drugs with water. Fill the syringe with the mix and move to poke the vein.

'Why are you doing this?' Came the clear thought from a voice that didn't sound like my internal one. I was so startled that I froze in place with the needle poised over my arm. I didn't have an answer and I couldn't think of one. I put the needle down and sat there thinking about that question till the guy who was staying with me banged on the door to let me know I was going to be late.

I've never picked  that needle back up, literally and figuratively, I think the dude who was staying with me actually stole my rig and stuff because it was missing when I got home. I still consider that a favor. 

The question has stuck with me and often when I am unsure about things I'll ask it of myself again. I've never heard the voice again and I sincerely doubt that I will before I die. I just hope at this point that when I finally do, I will be able to answer it about what I did while I lived.

So when I think about God that is what I remember first and that is why I believe.

someone had to die

I ran a horror game over the weekend called dread. It's a role-playing game that is much freer of rules than most role-playing games I am familiar with. The rule most of consequence is that when the tower of dread falls whoever was touching it last is immediately removed from the game.

The tower of dread is a  stack of blocks 3 wide stacked in multiple layers that resembles a trade marked game, but is not that game. However you could buy that game to make a tower of dread. 

Players pull blocks from the tower to accomplish difficult tasks or tasks outside of their background. The backgrounds are created by answering questions prepared in this case by myself.

It was fun and I will be running another game soon. I will be posting the next sets of questions as I get them finished. So that anyone who might play will have a chance to see them before they have to answer.

I also want to write up the first session as a short story as well as the stories that follow. To tickle my own particular sense of humor I plan to write an obituary for the character who died. This will be a steady thing since to end the game, someone has to die.

White cigarettes and the guilt

Behold the cigarettes of privilege, fear and rejoice in them, for they have come to satiate your cravings.

Seriously though the first thing that came to mind when I heard about these was, 'there are racist cigarettes?' It was immediately followed up with 'they must be for the chosen few.' I think the discussion of white people in general is starting to affect me negativity.

I got nothing

Seriously today I can't think of anything to talk about in the time I have to be able to actually do a post. Sometime next week though I will probably be doing A comparison between the style of vampire that I like, The ones that I can't stand, and the ones I think aren't explored enough.

I may also start talking about what God means to me. Specifically what brought me back around to believing in God. Which I at least think is a fascinating story even if it can be discounted as hallucinations. How do I mean, Well I'm one of those lucky individuals who believes they had a conversation with God and God spoke back.

Feeling rejected

What more could I say?

I suppose I could talk about why I feel this way, but it would be hard to not to call out people specifically. I'm trying hard not to point fingers and flog people publicly. Nothing good seems to come from that kind of behavior.

I feel like I have to tone down my awesome level to play with others in casual games. It has been pointed out that when playing games I seem to win most of the time. It has also been pointed out that I am very good at turning situations to my benefit. Both of these things were expressed in a way that characterized them as negative traits. I will assume that jealousy is to blame, but that makes me sad.

I don't feel worthy of that kind of envy. If the above was true then maybe I would. I do try to win and out fox others in games, but doesn't everyone? If apparent excellence garners negativity from others then what is the point of being good at anything? Is it Pride, cause that really just leads to an overinflated ego and emotional devastation when you do get toppled from the perch. Is it praise from your peers, because that sounds suspiciously lacking in humility.

I guess that is really the summation of this post today. What is the fucking point of being good at anything if it just causes you grief in the short and generally long term.

In search of a Bayou

This is what I found while looking for a setting to place a story.