electricpaladin | Entries tagged with fun

So, I've got this job I like, and I want to focus on it while I'm doing it, but at the same time I'm easily bored and distractable.

So.

I'm going to post some questions. I'd love to read your answers in the moments I steal between this and that. The questions might be things I really want to know, they might be things I want to know about you, and they might just be silly.

And if this is suitably amusing, I might do it again.

This great idea comes from

ghostlight by way of

ladypimpernel.

. . .

Question One

If you are about to be hit by a bus and you can't jump out of the way for some reason - maybe you just pushed a small, cute child out of the way, so you're contractually obligated to stand there - but your movement is otherwise unimpeded, what is your best course of action? Dive under the wheels and hope the bus passes over you? Jump into the air so the bus hits you full on and knocks you out of its path? Cradle your head and your sensitive, sensitive brains in your arms and hope for the best?

Question Two

If I were writing or playing a character who learned moved to a foreign country at, say, fourteen years old, and that was eight years ago, what are some guidelines for how he would speak? I understand that he's past the cutoff for perfect fluency, but what exactly would he sound like?

Question Three

I need to make a side dish and a finger food thingy (I refuse to spell that God damned French word) for tomorrow night, but I'm low on cash, low on food, and can't make anything dairy. Any ideas?

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: Work

I can has awesome?

I mean come on. I've got a driver's license. I can handle it. I would never complain about anything ever again if I could have one of these. I swear to God. If I was ever unhappy I would just jump on my goddamn freakin' awesome rock machine and just fly...

I really want to play Spirit of the Century now. If I can't have it in real life, I'll have to pretend. Or Exalted? With a few changes, that could live in Exalted. Maybe if someone runs Mage and I play a Son of Ether. I don't care, I just want.

Want.

Don't you love that thing? That thing where you are putting on your jacket to leave in the morning and discover that the copy of The Lord of the Rings that you bought the day before is still in the pocket. So you take it out and flip through it and read a few lines about Bandobras Took from the Introduction, and the next thing you know you've gone from two minutes ahead to two minutes behind and you have to peddle like hell to catch your train.

I love that feeling.

I'm going to re-read The Lord of the Rings after I finish Tam Lin and Fire and Hemlock. It's great to have so many great books lined up, isn't it?

I've got to go back to going through my day with Bandobras Took leading Hobbit slingers on ponies against charging orcs. Ciao.

Current Mood: anticipatory
Current Location: Work
Current Music: The Radio

The first verifiable opponent of the Great Old Ones is Howard Phillips Lovecraft, born in 1890 on Rhode Island. Before that, it is all conjecture. Some say King Solomon or his father, King David, or any number of the Hebrew prophets did righteous battle for the sake of mankind. Others attribute such heroism to figures as varied as Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Temüjin (better known as Genghis Kahn), Dogen (founder of Japanese Zen Buddhism), Tsui-Hung (Chinese Emperor 1082 to 1135), George Washington and numerous others. The only champion of humanity to leave a definitive record behind him, however, was Lovecraft.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft's interest in the Old Ones began with his father's death by tertiary syphallis - or so the doctors claimed - and ended with his death in 1937. It is believed that Lovecraft died of stomach cancer, though there are those who claim that, like his father, his demise was brought about by the beings he fought for all our sakes. Certainly, he died in agony enough for their tastes.

Lovecraft did not fight the way his apocryphal predecessors did. Unlike George Washington, if the late President's fans are to be believed, he did nothing so overt as prevent British arcanists from unleashing the unspeakable beasts that sleep beneath the United States's eastern seaboard, or influence the planning of a city so that it focuses the psychic strength of a nation on keeping those beasts asleep for all eternity. Nor did he, like Dogen, single-handedly keep the Japanese Archipellago from being overrun by Deep Ones with the power of his ascetic meditation. Instead, Lovecraft created a weapon that will weild itself against the Great Old Ones throughout history, long after even his memory has passed into dust and out of this world.

Lovecraft created us.

Encoded in H.P. Lovecraft's stories is the knowledge we need to survive, to continue fighting the good fight against the Great Old Ones, their minions, their realms and their weaknesses. How many times have I stood in the Dreamlands and succeeded in finding my way to safety and success only because of some detail remembered from the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath? How many times have I almost dared to open an ancient tome before remembering the doom that Lovecraft foresaw for any who read its cursed words? How many times would I have died, or worse, were it not for H.P. Lovecraft? How many times would you? More times than I can count, certainly. At great cost to himself - Lovecraft was never happy, his marriage failed, and he died in poverty - Lovecraft mapped the darkness.

Lovecraft's immediate followers were, perhaps, more ambitious. Robert E. Howard certainly achieved more in the way of feats of physical heroism. Clark Ashton Smith's tomes on magic are practically required reading for those of us who use the arcane arts to fight the Great Old Ones, and I myself know several spells he created and many more that he merely translated or adapted. August Derleth, in one of humanity's rare acts offensives against our foes, greatly weakened the Great Old Ones by forcing upon them definition according to classical greek elements and Hippocrates's four humours. They are all heroes - all of us are heroes - but none of them surpass H.P. Lovecraft.

In my mind, Howard Phillips Lovecraft will always remain the greatest of them all and our leader in spirit. He led the way down the path we all walk. While we fight, he remains among us; we will fight forever, and so, he will never die.

As is often written by the righteous upon his tomb: "That is not dead which can eternal die, and with strange eons even death may die."

...

If you read all this, thanks for sticking with me. This particular example of rampant dreaming is, in fact, very carefully researched, and except for the obvious, there is nothing here that isn't true. I hope you enjoyed my (very) belated Rabbit Hole Day post.

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Location: Home

Thanks to my connections at Kepler's (walking into the break room at exactly the right time) I have recently come into a small fortune in high-action, low-sense martial arts DVDs, including such amazing titles as Yo-Yo Girl Cop, Dynamite Warrior, Absurd Brave, Eight Immortals, and Whirlwind Knight. I have eight movies in all, none of which I have ever seen (or even heard of), and I would love to watch them with you. Which means... movie night.

I have two problems.

Firstly, I don't know if any of these are any good. I know 'good' doesn't really matter when it comes to martial arts movies - the thing is, these are all free full-length screeners, which means that for all I know, the quality stinks, or there's an annoying little title at the bottom of the screen saying 'free screener - not for sale' that never goes away. To solve this problem, I'd like to arrange for some backup movies. Anime, martial arts, action... whatever. As long as it's fun to watch and doesn't get in the way of talking, as I imagine this being a basically social event.

Secondly, my TV is really, really small and oddly situated. So, I need a partner. Anyone else out there have a nice TV in a nice living room, with some movies of your own you'd like to share?

Rock.

What else is new in my life, you ask? Lots. But this is all I feel like writing right now. More later - soon, even. Promise.

Current Mood: full of fondue
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Free Sample CDs.

I won! I won!

I just found out that I am the proud owner of Wraith: the Oblivion, second edition, White Wolf's game of something or other - I really can't be bothered to remember the blurb.

So, seriously, who's up for a celebratory Wraith one-shot? I'll begin accepting players now, pending the book's arrival, my having an idea, and schedules working out.

. . .

Finally, there is something very right with my life. Last night, Abby and I were talking about Halloweens to come, and we mentioned the possibility of dressing our children up in absurd and adorable costumes.

The possibility of dressing a baby or small child up as a maggot - with a home-made or modified glow-worm costume - came up.

From that, we moved on to the possibility of dressing our small child as one of Mask of Winter's giant maggots (miniature giant space maggot!)...

Which led to the idea of dressing our small child as one of Mask of Winter's giant maggots, with Abby and I dressed as deathknights.

Have I mentioned that I have the best girlfriend that there ever was?

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Paradise City, Guns N'Roses

My life.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Home

Mark: *in dismay, at the pile of dishes in the sink* I'm going to run away and join a monastery.

Abby: They don't use paper plates at monastaries, Mark. What you're thinking about is a barbecue.

Mark: Then I'm going to run away and join a barbecue.

Current Mood: dirty dishes
Current Location: Home

This one's going in my user info:

Mechanical Android Responsible for Killing

Also, headache all gone.

1. Go here.
2. Pass it on.
( I'm so, so sorry... )

"Mark, I don't understand why you do these things."

"It's not something I did, Mom, it just kind of happened."

"Your father was in college for four years, and he never became Anathema. I never became Anathema. Even your brother isn't Anathema."

"Mom..."

"It's those friends of yours. I always told you they were bad for you."

"My friends haven't got anything to do with me being Anathema, Mom. Like I said, it just sort of happened. And I prefer the term 'exalt.'"

"You know very well that you aren't an exalt. You're Anathema. That's the trouble with you, Mark. You never take responsibility for yourself. What does Abby think about this?"

"Abby doesn't mind, Mom."

"Oh, sure she doesn't."

"Don't start in on Abby, Mom."

"I won't. She's a wonderful girl. She's not Anathema. Why couldn't she be a better influence on you?"

"Mom..."

"We shouldn't have sent you away to college. You weren't ready. I should have realized."

"Mom..."

"I'm going to take that thing, that daiklave of yours, and I'm going to throw it away."

"Mom, you can't lift it."

"And how are you going to get into HUC like this?"

"I don't glow all the time, Mom, and I don't think HUC will mind."

"Are you sure?"

"I can check their web page."

"You do that."

"I will."

"And don't think this means you shouldn't call."

"I'll call, Mom, I promise."