I'm back!

I already miss Boston.

Granted, coming home and finding out that my whole raise scenario worked out in a way that is almost perfect was a nice boost, but not having two of my best friends at arm's reach just plain sucks.

Therefore my plan for the rest of the weekend is to figure out a matter transporter before D&D Sunday. ;)

Oh there's already more!

• "What, then you're gonna rape my grandmother? Blah blah fucking blah."


• "What are you doing?" "Driving through a mall, cops are chasing me." (He's literally driving through a mall. The inside of the mall. Think Blues Brothers. There you go.)


• After throwing a turban garbed cab driver out of his car, he yells "Al Qeada!" Grandmothers kick the poor man's ass. Brilliant.

That was in the first 22 minutes of the movie. I'm going to stop spoling bits of the movie now, but goddamn is this entertaining.

A few things before I leave...

• First, I saw the Protector (the new Tony Jaa movie of Ong Bak fame), and I thought of a great new title for it: "Tony Jaa brutalizes every mother-fucking thing he touches plus there's elephants."


• I'm watching the movie Crank and I'm 11 minutes into it and already enjoying the hell out of it, partially because the movie has the band the Refused in it.


• This great line: "...because if I knew where Ricky Verona was I'd probably be there right now beating the Gucci off his ass."


• Another great line: "You don't understand, I'm really dying here!" "You're saying this is medicinal use coke, is that what you're saying?"

I'm wonder how the next 77 minutes of Crank is going top that!

Vacation in colder climes

I am going on vacation starting tomorrow. I'm headed north to Boston till next Friday and I'm damn happy about it. I need a vacation. I haven't been out of town in a while, I've been getting stressed out, and I just need a freaking break from it all. I want to go not work for a week, stay away from everything that's been bugging me, and go drink tea at Peet's with two of my dearest friends in the world. I want to eat great food (which is easy in Boston), drink great beer and whiskey (also easy), and otherwise be as lazy as humanly possible. I've got a new DS game (I may get a second today), I'm taking books, and I'm definitely going to try to get back to writing again. Ok, writing might not be lazy, but so long as I'm not at work, thinking about work, or anything else that's been bugging me (work or otherwise), good the hell enough.

It doesn't look like it's going to be quite as cold as it was the last time I went to Boston in February. That's sort of unfortunate, as I do happen to like cold. But it's not likely to breach 40 while I'm there, so that's a plus. There are certainly those that have accused me of insanity for enjoying Boston in winter and hoping for cold, but what can I say other than, well, I am insane, just not for those reasons. I like snow, cold, and ice. I'm one of the few, but that just means that my favorite Bostonites get a regular visitor in the off-season and I doubt they'll complain about that!

Condolences and the undead?

A very interesting question was just posted to me by a good friend of mine, that question being are condolences appropriate when speaking of the loss of undead minions? That very question has officially blown my mind. Is it ever appropriate to express condolences when the undead are involved? This is a multi-faceted question that I will (of course) try to explore at length.

Though there are many different categories of the undead, I think the first one question about the undead that we must consider is the difference between mindless undead and sentient undead. Mindless undead would be skeletons and zombies, unthinking minions who follow a necromancer's every command. I am aware that one can also raise a zombie through ritual magic, but for the purposes of this particular discussions we will consider the ritual magic practitioner to be a necromancer as well. It would seem immediately apparent that a mindless undead minion would certainly not be condolence worthy, but, as you might have expected, I have thought of a scenario that might be appropriate. What if the necromancer in question had lost a loved one and, lacking any other appropriate skill, raised the dead body of said loved one in a way to always remember that person. Then consider if that zombie was destroyed in a fire or some other accident. It would seem to me that condolences would be at least appropriate at that point. The grief of that loss could be as bad or worse than the original death since this time the loss truly is forever.

Intelligent undead an an entirely different ball of wax. Imagine the spirit of an old friend shirks the afterlife and stays with you as a ghost or ghoul after his or her demise (either due to necromancy or stubbornness). That person would almost be the same, save the lack of actual life, and you could continue to feel for the now dead person as you felt for them in life. If that person were to be suddenly taken from unlife to plain old death, it would be just as if the person had died properly in the first place! Once again, condolences would seem to be appropriate here as well. Of course if the persistent shade were, say, an unloved mother-in-law, congratulations might be in order. Seems rather dependant on situation, no?

But we must go farther. Most necromancers aren't raising friends to hang on to the good old days a bit too long, they're raising small or possibly large armies to destroy those who would stand against them. The only way that condolences could possibly be appropriate in this situation would be if the necromancer were to gain some kind of affectionate feelings towards one of his minions. If he's got a pile of undead people milling about, I doubt that to be very likely. But imagine, if you will, if the necromancer raises, say, a dog or a wolf. Even though those creatures would be minions just like the other minions, no one ever said that people are very logical What if the necromancer began to treat that dog zombie more as a pet than as a minion? Over time it is conceivable that the necromancer could develop a weird sort of affection for that minion. If it were to be destroyed in some way, say by being turned to stone (no, I'm not bitter, really), it would not be inconcievable that the necromancer would be unhappy enough that perhaps even then condolences would be appropriate.

And there's yet more to say! Imagine that the intelligent undead became a necromancer himself and began to raise mindless undead all around him! Would he feel some kind of odd attachment to these other undead due to their similar places in unlife? Could he develop affectionate feelings for these creatures under his control over time? And that is where it comes down to the necromancer himself (or herself). If that unliving monster is actually a decent person who raises the dead not as meat puppets but as companions, the loss of those companions is certainly worthy of condolences. However, if the unliving monster is more interested in what those minions of his can do for him than in anything else, than I imagine the loss of his creations would be nothing more than an irritant, and annoyance. Any condolences offered would likely be met with derision or even laughter, even when genuinely intended.

In conclusion, I would have to say that condolences and the undead are very much situational based mostly on the necromancer and his or her reasoning for raising the horrible creations that are the undead. So before you offer your condolences to your necromancer friend, be sure of the intent behind the raising of the creature. If they are good of heart and use their powers for good rather than for awesome, you may be doing a good thing for an unhappy necromancer. If they are, on the other hand, say Neutral Evil, assume they have already forgotten that minion and are focused on the next horrible creation they can breath unlife into. Of course, if you have Neutral Evil friends, you have other problems you should probably look into in a hurry.

3 was my magic number...

And on a D20 that sucks. Especially when you're rolling a Fort save vs. turning to stone. I managed to do that FOUR FUCKING TIMES in a single gaming session rolling a 3 each time. I also lost an entire winter wolf pack (137 hp each) to being turned to stone and two freaking bloodhulk crushers (360 hp each), which are like the ultimate killing machines for me at my level, got stoned too all due to rolling a 6 or less on the die for each individual creature. A combat that could have taken four rounds dragged out into maybe ten to fifteen rounds, me being stone for most of it thus meaning that half our party spent most of their time near dead (or less undead, whatever) since I'm a fairly critical healer for our party. All in all, the dice gods had something against me. The only natural 20 I had was on a Knowledge Religion check for Christ's sake. Ugh. As least my dice are getting a nice break too since I'll be in Boston and unable to make the next game. Turns out both me and the other party healer won't be around, meaning that my party (motto: "we put the BASH in subtle") has to hope and pray that the only other possible healer is around that night or else there'll be a lot of XP loss for that gaming session. Poor bastards. In review: I hate the number 3.

No crane... there's a bad pun here...

Once again, my forearms hurt like a motherfucker due to my lovely training this evening. They hurt from elbow to wrist. Yeah. Ow. But that's not why I'm posting. I had a wonderful thought while contemplating my pain:

Wait for it...

"No pain, no crane."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Don't hurt me!

Dude...

The Atheist Ethicist is one of my favorite morning reads. Whoever writes the blog is a very smart and very good at getting his points across clearly and powerfully. Today AE comes out in defense of atheists everywhere in response to some Paula Zhan interview that essentially became atheist bashing. The most notable quote was, "This is a Christian nation." No it's not, assholes. But why should I try to say what AE says so much better? Read the post here.

I'm thinking of taking up smoking again...

Before you start emailing me to remind how bad an idea that is, do me a favor and don't. I know it's bad and I neither care nor worry that I will become addicted. I have started smoking and subsequently stopped smoking within two weeks more times than I'd like to count. I do not have an addicitive personality that is condusive to smoking. I do have OCD, but my OCD works best with things I always have on hand. I have to actually leave my house and buy cloves (what I like to smoke when I'm not smoking pipe), and usually about two weeks after starting smoking I just can't come up with the energy to go buy more cloves. I'm a two packs once in a while kind of smoker. Not remotely enough to actually threaten my health all that badly, taken with the fact that I don't inhale the smoke as I'm much more interested in setting fire to things and then blowing smoke around and maybe pretending I'm a dragon a little. My smoking would be quite limited as I have no interest in freezing my ass off for a clove, so I'd only be smoking on my walks or at home, and home is a place with many other kinds of distractions that should keep me safe from smoking too much.

You might be wondering why I would have any interest in starting smoking in the first place. Well, sometimes when I'm feeling stressed out enough, smoking is a wonderfully bad way of dealing with the excess nervous energy I tend to get lots of from time to time. The best habits to deal with stress are the most self destructive. I get to cheat knowing that I am essentially immune to the siren call that is smoking. I'm also far too much of a skinflint to see smoking as anything other than the occasional treat, so it's not a crutch I always fall back on when I want to try to stave off some stress.

Besides, let's face it, smoking is fun. I get to play with toys (Zippo), there's fire involved, I get to burn stuff, I get to blow smoke around, and, depending on where I'm smoking, I might get to try to shoot my spent clove at something and get an explosion of sparks out of it. What's not to like? Other than the miasma left behind by smoking, of course, or my mouth tasting like ass. Cloves are about the most actual flavorful form of smoking (other than pipe) I've found, but they inevitably get on my nerves for the same reasons that any other cigarettes do. This is another part of why it's so easy for me to quit after only two weeks.

So I may smell bad next time you see me, but it's guaranteed not to last all that long, and hopefully that stress will be either appropriately dealt with or will just stop bothering me so much soon. Didn't bother me this much two weeks ago, in theory I should be able to lapse back into apathy again soon.

my drug situation

I am of the mind that reducing my Wellbutrin was a good idea. I don't feel more anxious really, as far as I can tell. I'm still living without the fear and dread that I felt before my new drugs. Situations that normally would have left me a quivering horrible mess are now just getting shrugged off as if they are simply things I can handle. All in all, things seem to be going fine.

Minus one little detail: I've been biting my nails and fingers to the point of blood again. It's like coming down off this drug means I need to gnaw on things like some kind of rodent. My therapist suggested that it's probably just a reaction to decreasing a medication I've been taking for like 6 years and that I'll be fine as my body adjusts further. I sure hope so. Self-inflicted bleeding fingers are rather unpleasant, though I'll be damned if I can figure out how to stop myself.

Anyway, with things going as well as they are, I figure the next psychiatric stop will be "hey, that shit worked, lets drop the perscp even lower this time!" Assuming that also goes well, I figure I should be completely off Wellbutrin by summertime. And that would be fine by me. I'd like to be on less über-powerful psychotropic drugs if at all possible, and the idea that I would save money doing so is also a powerful motivating factor. Don't think for a second that I'd sacrifice my mental health for a little more money a month, but if I can get down to two medications a month, I'd be real happy.

To work with me!

An open letter to the Snow and Ice gods...

Dear Snow and Ice gods,

Fuck you.

Sincerely,
Me

coolest online toy ever

EVAR! Check this shit out and see how your free time evaporates.

Snow is a distinct maybe

I've been outside lately, and it was snowing out there most of that time. However, according to all the weather reports I've seen, no one is quite sure what's going to happen. I've heard that nothing but light flurries will be seen, that there will be heavier snow turning to an ice storm later, that there will be snow and ice followed by rain, and many other combinations of the three. Seems no one is really sure wtf is going on with the weather right now. I, obviously, am hoping for enough snow to take a day off due to the state of emergency that will have to be called for me to actually stay home from work. That seems unlikely, but who knows? Perhaps the snow gods will smile upon me. Or even the dangerous ice gods. Whatever gets me out of work, I'm happy.