...and it was wierd,
Ex#2 called me (in the dream) and invited me to come out to her place. I was about to categorically turn this invite down . . .
Her: "I have a guest coming you'd want to meet."
Me: "Nobody this side of Barack Obama could get me out to your place."
Her: "So when can I expect you?
Me: "YGTBSM"
Her: "If you don't believe me, check CNN"
I check CNN. Damned if she isn't right.
Right on schedule, the Obamas and the Secret Service roll into Pleasant Grove, followed by the media. Yes, he's making my ex's rather modest digs there his Western White House.
So I meet them in person. I ride a motor scooter with the girls and the oldest of Ex#2's sons. The youngest is allowed to hook his XBox into the President's satellite uplink for broadband internet access. Ex#2's mom takes the First Lady shopping in Roseville. I check out the Secret Service agents, communications gear and the various ironmongery deployed to protect the President. I get interviewed to within an inch of my life by CNN, et al. I tell Fox News to shove it.
Then I wake up.
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, April 25, 2008
" . . . this is your brain on hillbilly heroin. Any questions?"
More delusions of adequacy and sheer criminality from Rush Limbaugh.
I dream of his well-fed carcass in a prison jumpsuit . . . .
----------------
Now playing: Neil Young - Rockin' In the Free World
via FoxyTunes
I dream of his well-fed carcass in a prison jumpsuit . . . .
----------------
Now playing: Neil Young - Rockin' In the Free World
via FoxyTunes
The bizare world of my brain, 1.0
Time for another weird dream.
It was aliens again. This week it's Protoss from StarCraft. "They've come to Earth to enslave us all and steal our women and molest our sheep!" The usual. On my way to work one fine day I get kidnapped off the street by a van full of Men in Black, get put into a high-tech medical Iron Maiden and emerge buffed up like a Warhammer 40k Space Marine. All I need us the cigar to look like Duke Nukem.
Ok, power armor and heavy bolter in hand, I go hunting aliens. The alien's vessel is grounded near a pasture. They're stealing sheep! I take cover behind a tree and open fire. Nice little firefight; they hit the tree but I hit them. An alien heavy weapons team blows my tree to splinters with a plasma gun and I fly into a creek from the explosion. As I get up, one of the aliens rips off my power armor helm and extends a probe / straw to suck out my brains. I feed it a grenade; the scene looks like one from Ahrnold's Commando. The one where the terrorist commander's head explodes.
The sheep seem grateful, though.
Alarm clock
It was aliens again. This week it's Protoss from StarCraft. "They've come to Earth to enslave us all and steal our women and molest our sheep!" The usual. On my way to work one fine day I get kidnapped off the street by a van full of Men in Black, get put into a high-tech medical Iron Maiden and emerge buffed up like a Warhammer 40k Space Marine. All I need us the cigar to look like Duke Nukem.
Ok, power armor and heavy bolter in hand, I go hunting aliens. The alien's vessel is grounded near a pasture. They're stealing sheep! I take cover behind a tree and open fire. Nice little firefight; they hit the tree but I hit them. An alien heavy weapons team blows my tree to splinters with a plasma gun and I fly into a creek from the explosion. As I get up, one of the aliens rips off my power armor helm and extends a probe / straw to suck out my brains. I feed it a grenade; the scene looks like one from Ahrnold's Commando. The one where the terrorist commander's head explodes.
The sheep seem grateful, though.
Alarm clock
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
STUPID dreams...
Oh, this one was a riot.
I was dreaming I was my WoW Shaman. I was seeing the game world as he does, in full 3D, with all the things I as the player see in the game as well -- things like quest markers, chat channels and their associated inanity, etc.
I got this quest to visit a high-powered shaman in a remote area of the world. I went there, fighting my way through a gauntlet of monsters. This shammy guru wanted me to hand in my four elemental keystone totems. These totems are prerequisites for casting just about all of my spells (A WoW shaman is an elementally - aligned warrior / mage who can lay down totemic spells aligned to the elements, like a Fire totem that tosses a fireball, Earth totems that grant strength or resistance to damage, Water totems that heal / restore mana / remove poison, and Air totems that absorb magic or grant agility . . .)
OK, why hand in my totes? Apparently this quest was for a future game patch that released itself as WoW itself became sentient with delusions of godhood. The game was playing ME.
"This is fscking STUPD!" -- I disconnected and logged back in. Same idiocy.
I hit my hearthstone -- basically a teleport back to a home location I set that every class gets at 1st level -- Fizzle. "Ability requires Totem of Recall." Attacking this Level 73 Elite clown was out of the question. I laid down a totem just to see what would happen: "Ability requires Idol of Ascendancy."
OK, time to tell the GMs what's up. GM avatar shows up, slapped the guru down and told me that this patch got installed on my server as a joke.
"This is STUPID!" -- alarm clock
I was dreaming I was my WoW Shaman. I was seeing the game world as he does, in full 3D, with all the things I as the player see in the game as well -- things like quest markers, chat channels and their associated inanity, etc.
I got this quest to visit a high-powered shaman in a remote area of the world. I went there, fighting my way through a gauntlet of monsters. This shammy guru wanted me to hand in my four elemental keystone totems. These totems are prerequisites for casting just about all of my spells (A WoW shaman is an elementally - aligned warrior / mage who can lay down totemic spells aligned to the elements, like a Fire totem that tosses a fireball, Earth totems that grant strength or resistance to damage, Water totems that heal / restore mana / remove poison, and Air totems that absorb magic or grant agility . . .)
OK, why hand in my totes? Apparently this quest was for a future game patch that released itself as WoW itself became sentient with delusions of godhood. The game was playing ME.
"This is fscking STUPD!" -- I disconnected and logged back in. Same idiocy.
I hit my hearthstone -- basically a teleport back to a home location I set that every class gets at 1st level -- Fizzle. "Ability requires Totem of Recall." Attacking this Level 73 Elite clown was out of the question. I laid down a totem just to see what would happen: "Ability requires Idol of Ascendancy."
OK, time to tell the GMs what's up. GM avatar shows up, slapped the guru down and told me that this patch got installed on my server as a joke.
"This is STUPID!" -- alarm clock
Thursday, April 17, 2008
"Thanks for riding STFU Cab!"
My REM dream tonight:
I found myself driving a cab with brakes that barely work with obnoxious passengers. She kept screaming at me about my driving. My cab handled like a pig on ice -- a good thing when the semi with the heavy machine gun opened fire on me and the shots bounced off the cab's heavy armor. Once the semi veered off, I pulled the cab over, reached under the dash and pulled out a 30 Years' War wheel-lock pistol as long as my forearm with a bore the size of a king-size jawbreaker and told the passenger and her six kids to STFU or get out of my cab. She screamed and I shot her with ketchup from that wheel lock. The kids licked the ketchup off her.
THAT shut her up. I got the family to their destination and they paid me with two sheep. I reloaded the pistol with ketchup and drove off.
I found myself driving a cab with brakes that barely work with obnoxious passengers. She kept screaming at me about my driving. My cab handled like a pig on ice -- a good thing when the semi with the heavy machine gun opened fire on me and the shots bounced off the cab's heavy armor. Once the semi veered off, I pulled the cab over, reached under the dash and pulled out a 30 Years' War wheel-lock pistol as long as my forearm with a bore the size of a king-size jawbreaker and told the passenger and her six kids to STFU or get out of my cab. She screamed and I shot her with ketchup from that wheel lock. The kids licked the ketchup off her.
THAT shut her up. I got the family to their destination and they paid me with two sheep. I reloaded the pistol with ketchup and drove off.
Monday, February 18, 2008
DunDraCon 32 Report
DDC Con Report
For the first time in three years, I've made it to a game con . . . and I feel fine.
That has not always been the case with respect to gaming the last year. I was very very close to writing a repeat of last year's April Fools post – and that post not being a joke. I've been feeling burned out on all fronts of the hobby, missing the fire and passion I used to put into my games. My game world was in a virtual stasis, I had all but ceased writing anything for it and I kept asking myself “Why bother with working on a game anymore – or even playing?”
This weekend reconnected me with why I game. I originally decided to attend DunDraCon 32 as a kind of last huzzah, a farewell of sorts. I'd run a game as I always do, and I'd play as many as I could. If the old magic wasn't back by the end of the weekend, then I'd leave the hobby for good.
I got to the con on Saturday morning just minutes before the start of my con-sponsored game. I had put that game together in what had become my usual style the last year or so; with a bit of background info and an outline as to possible events. When I came up with the game-world event that would frame this adventure a few months earlier – having the party put an end to the misconduct of a mercenary company – I did not have a clue as to how this would happen. I floundered for weeks looking for an important game world consequence of failure . . . .
Sometimes I feel as though I am channeling the game world, not writing or running it. Stuff flits into my conscious mind, my “this is cool!” alarm triggers, and an idea hits the pixels. Three separate bolts of deep channeling hit me a week before the DunDraCon that got me the skeleton of a plot and some approaches the party may take in completing the adventure. On Saturday I had more pages of players notes than I did DM notes. This was a bit of a worry because the DM I was two or three years ago was hyper-prepared. I'm a good improviser, but was I good enough?
Apparently I was.
I got what had to be the best group of players I've had outside of my home groups: no power-gamers, no stat-monkey munchkins, no spotlight hogs. Players who actually took the time to read the background I'd created and integrated it into their roleplaying. While not up to the deep-character / deep verse style of the Kitsune Chronicles players (the best damn roleplayers I know, period!), I was floored by the quality of player I'd gotten, and I was as underprepared as ever.
My players made all the difference. They managed to scheme, sneak, dissemble and when needed fight their way to victorious success in the scenario. As in years past, I created a convention adventure where party failure at this convention game would drive major plot threads, or in this case, literally enact a cosmic change in the game world.
Their play took my breath away. I found myself challenged to keep up with them, even when I was the DM, the supposedly all powerful demigod in charge. I still don't know quite how it hppened, but I walked out of the game a new DM.
My D&D game was only the setup for what was to come next. The next day I finally got to play a game I bought some time ago as a convention break-game – SJ Games' Munchkin. Reading a review on a website saying “Munchkin is cool!” or hearing a friend tell you “Munchkin is cool!” pales next to the moment when you get to play and finally get to say to one and all “Munchkin is cool!”
Munchkin is a card game of old-school dungeon-crawling: kick open the door, kill the monsters, steal their stuff, stab your buddy in the back and steal his stuff too. Be the first to get to level 10 and you win.
I got the box out and one player (me) became three (me, Iz and another) became five. It's a game that's pretty easy to learn, hard to master. You must be ruthless in ensuring that your buddies get the backstabbery they soooo richly deserve. While I did not win, I came very close and managed to pull off some pretty ruthless moves. At times I think they need to call this game “You Bastard!” because that's what you'll say when someone ices your perfect plan to kill the last monster you need to win. A willingness to engage in High Treachery is needed to win. If you aren't looking for a way to fsck your buddy, you aren't playing to win.
In meta terms, DDC seemed a much smaller con than it was back in 2002-3. The dealer room was tiny, the con less spread out. I suspect this is due to macroeconomic issues and worries.
The facilities in San Ramon were awesome as usual, the hotel staff was friendly if a bit bemused by the eclectic crowd that is Gamer Nation. The on-site food options were not insanely overpriced. I would have given a random testicle for decent bandwidth, though.
Finally, early Monday morning I was interviewed for a podcast: “Heroes of Science Fiction and Fantasy.” In it I discuss my adventure “The Agony of Kessel” and my favorite sf and fantasy media.
For the first time in three years, I've made it to a game con . . . and I feel fine.
That has not always been the case with respect to gaming the last year. I was very very close to writing a repeat of last year's April Fools post – and that post not being a joke. I've been feeling burned out on all fronts of the hobby, missing the fire and passion I used to put into my games. My game world was in a virtual stasis, I had all but ceased writing anything for it and I kept asking myself “Why bother with working on a game anymore – or even playing?”
This weekend reconnected me with why I game. I originally decided to attend DunDraCon 32 as a kind of last huzzah, a farewell of sorts. I'd run a game as I always do, and I'd play as many as I could. If the old magic wasn't back by the end of the weekend, then I'd leave the hobby for good.
I got to the con on Saturday morning just minutes before the start of my con-sponsored game. I had put that game together in what had become my usual style the last year or so; with a bit of background info and an outline as to possible events. When I came up with the game-world event that would frame this adventure a few months earlier – having the party put an end to the misconduct of a mercenary company – I did not have a clue as to how this would happen. I floundered for weeks looking for an important game world consequence of failure . . . .
Sometimes I feel as though I am channeling the game world, not writing or running it. Stuff flits into my conscious mind, my “this is cool!” alarm triggers, and an idea hits the pixels. Three separate bolts of deep channeling hit me a week before the DunDraCon that got me the skeleton of a plot and some approaches the party may take in completing the adventure. On Saturday I had more pages of players notes than I did DM notes. This was a bit of a worry because the DM I was two or three years ago was hyper-prepared. I'm a good improviser, but was I good enough?
Apparently I was.
I got what had to be the best group of players I've had outside of my home groups: no power-gamers, no stat-monkey munchkins, no spotlight hogs. Players who actually took the time to read the background I'd created and integrated it into their roleplaying. While not up to the deep-character / deep verse style of the Kitsune Chronicles players (the best damn roleplayers I know, period!), I was floored by the quality of player I'd gotten, and I was as underprepared as ever.
My players made all the difference. They managed to scheme, sneak, dissemble and when needed fight their way to victorious success in the scenario. As in years past, I created a convention adventure where party failure at this convention game would drive major plot threads, or in this case, literally enact a cosmic change in the game world.
Their play took my breath away. I found myself challenged to keep up with them, even when I was the DM, the supposedly all powerful demigod in charge. I still don't know quite how it hppened, but I walked out of the game a new DM.
My D&D game was only the setup for what was to come next. The next day I finally got to play a game I bought some time ago as a convention break-game – SJ Games' Munchkin. Reading a review on a website saying “Munchkin is cool!” or hearing a friend tell you “Munchkin is cool!” pales next to the moment when you get to play and finally get to say to one and all “Munchkin is cool!”
Munchkin is a card game of old-school dungeon-crawling: kick open the door, kill the monsters, steal their stuff, stab your buddy in the back and steal his stuff too. Be the first to get to level 10 and you win.
I got the box out and one player (me) became three (me, Iz and another) became five. It's a game that's pretty easy to learn, hard to master. You must be ruthless in ensuring that your buddies get the backstabbery they soooo richly deserve. While I did not win, I came very close and managed to pull off some pretty ruthless moves. At times I think they need to call this game “You Bastard!” because that's what you'll say when someone ices your perfect plan to kill the last monster you need to win. A willingness to engage in High Treachery is needed to win. If you aren't looking for a way to fsck your buddy, you aren't playing to win.
In meta terms, DDC seemed a much smaller con than it was back in 2002-3. The dealer room was tiny, the con less spread out. I suspect this is due to macroeconomic issues and worries.
The facilities in San Ramon were awesome as usual, the hotel staff was friendly if a bit bemused by the eclectic crowd that is Gamer Nation. The on-site food options were not insanely overpriced. I would have given a random testicle for decent bandwidth, though.
Finally, early Monday morning I was interviewed for a podcast: “Heroes of Science Fiction and Fantasy.” In it I discuss my adventure “The Agony of Kessel” and my favorite sf and fantasy media.
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