• Neglected space

    It’s been ages since I put anything solid down here. I’ve written a few random things, but nothing solid. Partially I suppose that’s because I got distracted by having my word press hacked, and then frustrated with trying to fix that. I’m not using much in the way of social media these days so these entries are even less likely to be read than they were before.

    I looked back, and the last pile of entries was back before the lockdowns, when I did a series of Halloween movie reviews, back in 2018.

    I know with the whole moving to another country thing, I had some concerns about what I was writing being a possible concern, and then with all the things that happened since, being paranoid that what I was writing could be used against me.

    I probably shouldn’t fear that. I should probably just write what’s on my mind. Embrace the whole free speech thing. Talk about my fears, rather than having my tongue held by them.

  • Notes of everdying and ghosts

    Death is an anchor, a nail driven into the fabric of reality, and the difference between ghosts and the everdying is how how deep the nail was driven

    The former, formerly living folks, come back without their flesh, and with some degree of their memory and existence intact. To what degree determines how they interact with the world. Deeper driven, they can be reasoned with, to some degree. Forces play against them over time, wiggling the nail until it breaks or comes loose entirely; removing their minds or even any manifestation.

    The everdying on the other hand, come back intact, and mostly unchanging. They are in many ways fixed by their moment of death, and it takes a great will to reshape them past it. Truly they require a great will to remain, as the same forces pull at them, wiggling them out of their intrusion into the fabric.

    While we refer to them as the everdying, they exist in a state that most would consider to be immortal; not strictly true, but true enough over the lifetime of most mortals. Everdying will recover from any injury, as they will leap back to that state they were pinned to, whole and remade, only slightly frayed at the edges. Where they return depends on the nature of the destruction and their awareness of it. A simple stab wound, they’ll shrug it off without much notice beyond the pain. A gunshot somewhere fatal, they’ll pop back up a few minutes later, often exclaiming how lucky they were to have simply been knocked unconscious. Something more devastating, something that destroys the flesh, and they’ll recover in the place they died, as they died; Same clothing, same flesh. That’s when most realize that they are everdying. Prior to that first significant death, they think themselves merely lucky, or in some cases unlucky; denial is a powerful thing, in it’s own way.

  • It’s been a while…

    There may be some small errors in this document, they will be removed if discovered.

    Where to begin? Well, I’m somewhat freshly home from the hospital. I had an 8 day stay, a full week beyond the original plan of surgery and overnight observation. The surgery was a bit intimidating, but the surgeon had done it hundreds of times before and his confidence was reassuring; it was 7 hours, hence the overnight observation afterwards.


    It’s during the observation afterwards that the problems arose. My potassium levels were low, and kept falling despite the supplements they were giving me. My magnesium and calcium were also low, though the calcium was to be expected, as the parathyroid, which is impacted by the removal of the thyroid, helps in controlling the calcium, and the magnesium is tied to the calcium.

    My wife had set up my kindle in a gooseneck mount with a remote clicker, so I was able to just lie there and read my book. That helped pass the time, as did the podcasts on my phone and random youtube videos on my tablet.

    We’d planned the surgery for a week when we didn’t have our daughters, so she would be able to spend time with me, and it’s fortunate that we’d done so. Having her stay in the hospital with me as much as she did made the process far more bearable than it would have been on my own. Especially when the calcium symptoms overwhelmed me.

    Low calcium often results in a strangely intense sensation, related to pins and needles, and while I wouldn’t describe it as painful, it definitely takes your focus in the same way pain does. As it wasn’t painful, there wasn’t much that could be done for it, beyond providing additional calcium, which would reduce and remove symptoms as my body absorbed it.

    There were times when I felt like my body was shutting down, and that I wouldn’t recover; that my body didn’t have enough to keep going. That I needed to use my phone to record some last words, telling her that I loved her. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case and I’ve been able to tell her several times since how much I love her and how much I appreciate what she’s gone through to help me with this.

    At one point, the symptoms from the calcium withdrawal were bad enough that she thought I was having a stroke, and we did a FAST check, as I had facial drooping. Turns out, that’s just one of the things that happens when your calcium gets too low. The nurses were a little concerned over that, though they were kept good poker faces.

    We’d also made plans for our dog, who is a loveable but scared boy of a good eighty-plus pounds. We’d adopted him from a shelter back in the fall of ’22, and he’d been there a good while before we had. Given his disposition, it didn’t make sense to try to board him anywhere, he needed to be taken care of by family. My mother-in-law and my wife’s girlfriend were able to help us with that, and I can imagine the strain on them was considerable. I’m grateful they were able to help us with him, despite all the challenges they faced.

    I spent a fair amount of time with IV fluids being pumped into my arms. I’d had an IV put into my right arm when I’d arrived. I think they had a second one in my left hand during the surgery, but it had been removed after. On, I believe it was the 3rd day, the IV in my right arm started to leak, so a nurse removed it and then installed one in my left forearm. Later that same day, an additional IV was placed via ultrasound in my right vein. The fellow who did that was a bit of a character, and confident in his work. (Frankly, all of the staff were wonderful.) The IV in my right arm became the main one to be used, though at times I had IVs in both arms, as they were running bags of Calcium, Magnesium and Potassium fairly regularly, to keep my levels up.

    Overall though, the experience wasn’t unpleasant. As I’d mentioned, the staff were great; they had amazing attitudes, were always trying to help, and just really seemed like they enjoyed and cared about their work. The food was quite good, and I even learned of a new meat substitute that I enjoy, Tempeh. I’d ordered it as part of a salad and it really hit the spot.

    My wife had brought in a board game, Cosmoctopus, and we were able to play that. It was nice, just sitting there, playing a game. Folks came in for various reasons, providing meds, taking blood or vitals, etc, and they were amused by the cute little octopus.

    She also brought in my steam deck, and while I had initially hooked it up to the main TV in the room, she’d later provided me with her secondary monitor connect it to, so I spent a fair bit of time playing games on it. That definitely helped with the waiting.

    I had regular visits, both from the surgeon and his team, and from the other doctors who’d been brought in to figure out what exactly was going on and what could be done so that I could be stable enough to go home. I’m sure I’m leaving out a bunch of details, but the short version is that the surgery went well, the tumours were removed, and things were looking good, as far as the cancer went.

    Monday, my wife brought our daughters to visit, and we were able to go down and have a family dinner in the cafeteria. It was nice spend time with them, though dragging around the IV of potassium was a little awkward.

    At some point, the team brought in a nephrologist, which as I understand it specializes in the kidneys. After an ultrasound and some blood work, there was positive news and a theory; Hyperaldosteronism. Tests were planned.

    The next day, they infused me with 2L of saline over 4 hours, which should lower the levels of aldosterone in my body, and then drew blood. After that, they were able to give me a drug to help with the aldosterone, which should allow my body to stop fighting the treatment. Then it was just a matter of time to get me stable without IVs, so I could be discharged.

    Wednesday, my girls came to visit after school, and I was discharged with them. I got to go home, sleep in my own bed. Prior to that, the staff were able to remove one of the two drains that had been installed in my neck and the stitches. The drain was painless but odd feeling as it was removed. The stitches, I mostly didn’t feel, except for a tugging, especially at the end, with the final tiny stitches.

    The next day, I had to go to provide a blood sample in the morning, so we were able to take the girls to school. I got a few looks as I walked my daughters to their classroom doors, hopefully I didn’t scare anyone too much. After a week of providing blood samples every 8 hours if not more often, just providing one sample a day was a nice change.

    At some point during my sleep deprived state, I’d started to refer to them as phlebotanists, rather than phlebotomists. Taking my blood to feed their plants, apparently.

    The test results came back, my diagnosis confirmed. Primary aldosteronism; an endocrine disease. It’s symptoms were things I’d dealt for many years. Having it understood to be the cause, there is hope that those symptoms will be abated or better controlled, and that I can be much healthier in the long run.

    I continue to meet with the various doctors, and take an excessive amount of pills, but I’m in a good place right now. It’s been a journey, there is more road ahead, but spirits are high and we will wander on, perhaps a little less lost.

    I’d mentioned that my doctor had performed this surgery hundreds of times before, and the surgery itself, seems to have gone quite well. I’d just had a complication that kept me there a week, longer than any previous patient of his; I’d set a new record.

    I’ve left out little details, how little sleep I got, due to how often I was poked, how often my vitals were taken, or simply that I couldn’t get comfortable. And also how often the respiratory team offered me water for my CPAP, or to help set it up, despite it being my own machine that I regularly set up and used and that they’d provided a good liter of water for on the first night.

  • Circular thoughts

    Circles of protection, often a ring of salt, occasionally a set of runes, are a staple of supernatural fiction; a mystic shield that protects the protagonists and imprisons antagonists.

    The problem is, a circle is a flat plane and we exist in more dimensions, so in order to protect us, the circle has to have more dimensions. But how are those dimensions defined and refined?

    One version would be that the circle is actually a sphere and the width determines the height, though humans tend to be taller than they are wide, and with that math many circles would leave heads exposed. Something that is rarely explored, but could be a good piece to a story.

    An obvious alternative is that the amount of energy used when empowering the circle determines how tall it is, and by habit most people make it taller than they are. This could even be argued to be a subconscious process, something picked up while learning the ritual in the first place. It could also explain how some circles are of limited use or appear to fail altogether; they were cast too short to be of much use. Potentially some interesting scenes there.

    The logical extension of this is if they can be empowered during their configuration or creation, is there a way this could be used to greater impact? We’ve seen circles on the ceiling used to trap things below. What about a vertically mounted circle being used to close a passage or to create a battering ram that only hits supernatural creatures?

    How about a dodecahedron, with circles carved into its faces, with a power source inside, allowing the circles to all expand at once? Certainly be a creative weapon in the right circumstances.

  • NaNoWriMo Sprints

    I don’t actually know what a writing sprint is, or what it means to do one, they just told us to do sprints, and I didn’t actually ask what they were. So I’m just typing randomly, banging away on my keyboard, trying to get my brain working again, trying to get back into the rhythm of just writing my thoughts as they come. But I hate that word, it’s one of the random handful that I can’t recall how to spell. People continue to type in the channel, and from the context clues, I’m guessing maybe we are supposed to be working on our novels, but damn it, I have nothing pulled together for my novel yet. I have a few random fragments here on the site that could be considered, but none that have my current flavour. But at least writing this nonesense is a good way to get a feel for writing again, hammering away at the keyboard. Angry typing as my wife calls it, the machine gun pace of the keys clacking. I need some more soda. I didn’t make myself one after the quiplash game before the sprints started.

    Of the fragments I reviewed, the one with the letter from the Society of Cassandra has some interesting potential. A secret society of seers that send out envelopes with prophecies to various folks, with other envelopes sealed inside, with opening instructions cryptically written on the back. It’s got potential for something. Maybe the MC finds one of the envelopes. Given that they’re seers, it would in theory be addressed to him, but it could perhaps be that he has the same initials or mildly uncommon name as someone else, and he intercepts the letter and thus is pulled into the war between the various factions, looking to manipulate the strings of fate to ensure that the future they want is the one that comes to pass.

    It’s not a bad basic plot, but the question would be where does it go. What is the society warning people against in this case? Have some members of the society decided to rebel against their common future, or is it more a case of factions playing each other?

    There’s also the fragment about the chains of time that I need to review, the one about the time travel related anti-bodies, and perhaps one or two others. And of course there’s everyone’s favourite, the drunken wormhole story. And I’d previously mentioned wanting to work on wormwood also.

    Wormwood, as a concept, is function. There is a parasite that lives inside the log that the dummy was carved out of, and something wakes it up, allowing it to start to burrow into the ventriloquist, both into his mind and into his body. The parasite needs a goal, which was probably to feed, though what a parasite that lives in wood and puppets people feeds on is perhaps something that requires further thought. The ventriloquist’s goals are probably just to stop it, to get free of it. Maybe he had a goal to become successful, maybe to get some payback, but that quickly gets pushed aside by whatever the parasite does to him.

    I need to review my notes on it, see what I’ve already written and if I’ve forgotten anything I’d previously considered.

    Descriptions continue to be a weak point in my writing. I think I’ve improved the dialogue, but I do a terrible job at filling in a scene, ever since I started focusing on improving the dialogue, getting the flow of the conversation to feel right.

    There was a break here.
    We did a round of madlibs. Never really been a fan of those.
    Another 15 minute sprint. I’m still not sure what sprints are.
    Stuff elsewhere on discord distracted me from the start of this sprint.

    Nope, nothing coming out this time. I suppose I should take the time to go get my soda and see if that does anything.

    and then Kona needed to go outside, so I did that.

  • Ramblings

    It’s Christmas day, and aside from the dog managing to perform a Hoth manoeuvre on me, it’s been a good day. My wife bought me a new watch and despite her concerns about picking the right one, it’s probably a better choice than if I’d gone out and got one myself. I’d have probably just gone for a samsung smartwatch, as I’d seen they had a price drop recently and have decent reviews. What she got me was a nice Garmin with a whole slew of bells and whistles. Nearly a decade ago, I backed the pebble smartwatch and had one of those for a few years until it randomly became haunted. This reminds me of that, but better.

    I’ve previously owned a Garmin watch, a nice little GPS one that my parents bought for me, I’d used it to track my walking speed. When I logged into their system, I saw my data from back in 2011 and earlier, with a brief burst of activity in 2013. Based on Pebble’s wiki, I’d have replaced the Garmin with the pebble, until I’d retired it.

    Wearing a watch again, after having not for so long, it’ll take a bit to get used to.

    There are a variety of watch face options available, and I’ve gone with a text one, fuzzy time. I think I had it’s equivalent on my pebble back in the day. Not the exact time, just a rough approximation; Quarter after four, twenty to five, that sort of thing. For the most part, I think that suits my needs. I rarely need to know the exact time these days.

    Last night, we watched Bullet Train, and I enjoyed it. It reminded me of Smoking Aces by way of Snatch. Another friend said Lock Stock meets Knives Out.

    Speaking of Knives Out, we saw Glass Onion the night before, and it was fun. Better than I had expected. The rich successful idiot theme seemed very timely, especially in light of recent events.

  • fibrous bridges

    “History is a bridge, stretching across a vast chasm, made a fibrous joints, wrapping around each other as the lives of those they represent are intertwined.”

    “Poetic today, aren’t we?” a laugh. “But what does this have to do with that thing the other night?”

    “That thing was one of the creatures that crawls along the surfaces of the bridge.”

    “I’m not sure your metaphor is working here.”

    “I assure you, it’s accurate, and that is why it isn’t working for you. For you, history is just a book, but as I have said, it’s a bridge. With the right skills, one can leave the structure and go for a stroll down it. Though most who do so are promptly eaten, by things like that.”

    “Let’s say I accept your explanation, despite my expression, how does that explain why it was here?”

    “Something wounded history, it dug into the wound and emerged here. Beyond that, it’s hard to say. Especially post mortem.”

    “How so?”

    “If we’d studied it, we might have been able to determine how smart it was and what it’s intent was. It could have simply been acting on instinct, cleaning the wound so it would heal.”

    “So it could have been the good guy, if a bit indescriminate in the killing? That’s a bit hard to swallow.”

    “There are other possibilities. But with it dead, we can guess.”

    “You perhaps, I’m still wrapping my head around this whole bridge.”

  • Spectrapharmacology

    “Wait, what’s their specialty?”

    “Spectrapharmacology. Ghosts and drugs.”

    “How does that work? Are they drugging the ghosts? Are the drugs for us so we can see the ghosts easier? Are the drugs to hide the ghosts?” A sigh and a roll of the eyes.

    “They had a letter from the Society of Cassandra. I didn’t ask too many questions, just how much space they’d need in the van.”

    “Right, smart call. I’m guessing the letter included an address?”

    A quick nod. “Residential this time. And no extra envelopes inside for a change.”

    “Yeah, not a fan of those. I mean, don’t get me wrong, contingency plans are good, but those just take it a little too far.”

  • Orcacon 2023

    I’ve made plans to attend Orcacon up near Seattle in the new year. It’ll be my first convention since SHUX back in 2019, I think. Seems like it has a similar attitude, which will be nice.

    I had originally planned to drive up, but I decided that I’d rather not deal with the potential snow going through the Snoqualmie Pass. So flying it is. Until recently, it had been at least a decade since I’d flown, I’d even driven to the Maritimes, rather than fly.

    Friends of mine from Vancouver will be driving down, and it’ll be good to see them again.

    I’ve booked my tickets to fly in the night before the convention, I’ll get a good night’s rest and then figure out how to get over to the convention hotel. I’ve booked into an RPG on the first night, but I think that’s the only game I’ve planned for that weekend.

    According to the website, there will be food trucks outside, so that’ll be nice. Reminds me of GottaCon in Victoria, back when we went.

  • Campaign Thoughts

    A few years back, I designed something we called the ARSE, Active Research System Experiment. It was a system agnostic way to handle historical knowledge in RPGs. The players would encounter a mystery they wanted to solve, such as the location of an object or the fate of an expedition, and they’d do their leg work to get an appropriate lead, such as a journal written by a member of the that expedition. At which point they’d be given a selection of character sheets to pick from; they would be taking on the roles of the members of that expedition, and the storyline that played out would give them the answers they’d sought in the future. Or not, as it was possible they wouldn’t solve the mystery, the lead turning out to be a dead end.

    This allowed us to experiment with different systems, settings, etc, and give players a break from a campaign, something that can prevent burnout. In theory, the system also allowed the GM to pull less punches, especially if there were more members of the expedition than in the party. One of them gets killed off, the player picks up one of the unpicked sheets and someone else has stepped up to fill in the vacancy left by the recently deceased.

    That system is still something I’ve had tucked away in my toolkit, for the day when I might actually need it.

    This post however, is about something a little different, thought it emerges from a similar stream of thoughts.

    I’d like to do a campaign loosely inspired by both Eternal Darkness from the Gamecube, and that recent Netflix series Fear Street, with it’s 3 parts taking place in three timelines. I’m sure there are other things that fit into this mould also, but those are the two that leap to mind currently. Also, I suppose it would owe some credit towards Doctor Who, with the various episodes that took place across human history. Or I suppose even the whole Assassin’s Creed series with the whole Abstergo operatives looking back through history.

    There would need to be a central threat or mystery, that the group was somehow exposed to, and having survived that, they’d have reason to seek the other groups who’d also encountered this, in an attempt to learn what they could about it.

    A basic framework like this gives you reason to visit places like Ancient Greece, Victorian London, and a whole variety of other evocative places.