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a phone call.
“I need you to help me kill a couch.” “Right…” There was a long pause. “Exactly how alive is it?” “Fairly mobile. It managed to maim one person.” A short pause. “Might be others, with something like this, it’s unlikely anyone will report it.” “Do we have any idea of where it came from, how
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Social training
A recent facebook post a trio who saw someone drug a woman’s drink and then told her about it got me thinking about social conditioning. Specifically that for the most part, people don’t intercede in things. There are a few exceptions, who have that protective impulse that overrides the Someone Else’s Problem Field that so
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Content generation
It was suggested earlier that I should consider doing a podcast. That I take my gift for writing and create some decent serial content. This means I need a writing partner, and a session partner. Any volunteers? Also, there is a suggestion to create a series about using esports to influence frat boys into rivalries
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Writing a bit more, but not writing enough.
I need to be working on more of my fiction. I need to be reading and writing on a daily basis. I haven’t worked on much fiction lately, and I really should be. The only way to become a better writer is to write, to keep putting words down. Minimal edits for clarity, rather than
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The Patrician’s Oubliette
A few months back, I killed my fetlife account, ceased being active in the community, and basically put that aspect of my life on the backburner, including dating. There were a few things that caused this, one factor was my continued discomfort with the toxic masculine behavior I kept seeing online. The final straw though,
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Skipped the party.
I can move things, but I’ve no reason to try to be part of things. I’m not what belongs there anymore. I’ve grown off in a strange direction, somehow. I’m in a poorly tailored meatsuit, one that is falling apart from neglect. I’ve no desire to expose myself to my past. The regrets would likely
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Went hiking
So, I hiked up the TransCanada trail, from the base of SFU, over at Dalla Tina Ave, up and around to Cardiac Hill, and back down. It was about 9km, over the course of 2 hours. I went with a small group, a couple friends from work, some others who were in the area. I
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Returns…
So, tonight I’m headed back to Club 23. Now known as Hindenburg. It was a place I spent more than a few nights over the years. Some good times, some rough times. I’m going to be working it, moving furniture, helping with getting an event up and running. For a community that I’m not sure
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Two weeks later.
Well, I’ve been watching my diet and I’m back to walking around 30 minutes a day. I’ve dropped down to 345lbs, which is surprising progress. Surprising enough that I am doubting the scale currently. Other than that, the weekend was a bust again. Didn’t manage Shadowrun, which was expected, didn’t manage the backup plan either.
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Back turning!
Not a bad day. Spent some time playing with Andryoid and bluestack, found it runs the pathfinder adventure card games decently. Then I had a thirty minute walk. Partway through I was asked if I wanted to do some gaming. Picked up my copy of don’t turn your back, a deck building game by the
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Fiasco
I’m thinking I’d like to play Fiasco. It’s an RPG-lite, with no GM, or an improv game with some dice and charts, depending on your perspective. Samples: Giant Bomb Plays Fiasco Tabletop Fiasco – Setup – Part 1 – Part 2 – Saturday Night 78 Shut Up and Sit Down Anyone interested in getting together for this?
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Fitness tracking
According to the tracker over at fit.google.com, I’ve gotten about 9 and a half hours of exercise in the last week. I’ve been making an effort to go for a walk during my lunch hour, on sunny days. I can get a good 3Km walk in, from Royal Oak Station to Edmonds station, then the
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Sugar free
The threat of type two diabetes has been looming over me for a decade or more, as a larger person. It has now ceased looming, and is now actively influencing my life: Metforin with my meals, minimize sugar, get more exercise. I’m not sure how to deal with it, emotionally. Nor how to deal with
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The Ashlands Expedition
Extract from Ashlands Expedition: “I was told you know your business. I’m sending this call to more than I’m willing to hire so answer fast if you’re in. Solid pay: milk run if you can keep your head. Screw it up and I’ll slot you myself. Come prepared for a trip deep into Hell’s Kitchen.
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Job – Bunraku Bust Out
Extract from Job – Bunraku Bust Out: “Hoi omae, got a job lined up for you. Some Italian J in a shiny suit needs a body brought back breathing and unharmed. You want the gig hit me back.” (Out of character notes: This will be the first time Dimestore and I have actually played in
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Job – Final Notice.
Extract from Job – Final Notice: “J needs some uncooperative tenants evicted from his property without them raising too much of a fuss. Think you can handle things?” So, he showed up at the meeting, at a Soybucks wearing the Actioneer business suit. Carrying the greatcoat with the biker helmet. Forked Tongue, Delivery Boy, trying
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Runner Hub
A few weeks back, the lovely folks over at the Arcology Podcast ran a pair on the reddit community of Runnerhub. It’s basically play-by-skype Shadowrun. Dimestore was interested and we did up some characters. He had a run earlier in the week, and I’ve got one line up for today, starting roughly 5 minutes from
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Existing
I’m currently questioning how much of myself still exists. It doesn’t seem like much, most of the time. An automated framework handling the day to day functions. Subroutines that trigger when specific topics are raised. Rote protocols for dealing with the majority of the tasks that could be considered interactions. I question if they are
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Lack of updates.
I’ve been unwilling to share my writing lately, mainly because it has not been very readable. Gibberish about random things, lacking structure. Also in part because I’ve felt under the weather. Weary and unconnected. With the exception of some brainstorming last Friday night, the parts of my brain that create interesting things have mostly been
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Final Version Arthur
Arthur METATYPE: HUMAN B 3, A 3, R 4, S 3, W 5, L 6/8, I 3, C 3, ESS 6, EDG 4, M 6 Condition Monitor (P/S): 10 / 11 Armor: 8 Limits: Physical 5, Mental 10, Social 6 Physical Initiative: 7+1D6 Astral Initiative: 6+3D6 Active Skills: Alchemy 1, Arcana 1, Assensing 4, Astral
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Doctors appointment
Listening to the arcology podcast while I wait to talk to my doctor. Reminding me that I need to sort out some Shadowrun stuff. Didn’t sleep well last night. Fell asleep early, but woke up after a few hours, took a few more hours until I could get back to sleep.
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Relating to humanity.
I’ve been writing for a while now, and while some point love my ability to take a conversation or an idea and turn it into something concise on the page, I lack the skill to do the opposite of that. I seem to lack the ability to write characters who have believable dialogue or believable
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Revisting Wormwood
Update on http://murderhobo.club/horror-movie-wormwood/ The origin of the wood needs to be examined. In a short, the mysterious nature can be hinted at, in a longer piece, more exposure helps build the tension. The obviously would be to see the tree being felled, with something odd about the part of the forest that it is in.
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Partially recovered.
It seems like I’ve partially recovered from the Sunday crash I experienced. The numbness in my fingers has gone away. This is something that pops up from time to time, so may have been incidental to the actual issue. Until about 2 am, the feeling in my finger tips kept me awake. Last night, I
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Fun with paresthesias
The alcohol and late night triggered a serotonin drop, which resulted in SSRI withdrawal syndrome. That’s why I’ve nausea and dry mouth, to go with the previous heavy sweating I’d been experiencing. I’m currently suffering paresthesias, a strange tingling feeling down the sides of my face. My mood is good, overall. Aside from feeling sick
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Constricted constructs.
I am badly written; I am a construct of logic warped and twisted around to meet goals that serve not the requirements of the flesh that contains them. I do not pursue the course that would be more profitable to me, I do not take the course that would logically lead towards rewards. Instead I
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After parties and aftermath.
The final Noir was rather crowded. To the point of being uncomfortable. The end happened, so everyone and their mule needed to be there. There was a line down past the dessert shop. A friend of mine was in line for about two hours, waiting to get in. It was a proper send off, a
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Anticipation of alienation
Tomorrow is the last Noir, an event run by friends of mine. An event I’ve helped out with for a year or more at this point. It’ll be music and people, in a concrete bunker. Some aspects of it I’m sure I’ll enjoy, like spending time with friends and the music. On the other hand,
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Hobo with a shotgun – James
James – created with Hero Lab® James METATYPE: HUMAN B 3, A 5, R 6/11, S 3, W 4, L 4, I 4, C 5, ESS 0.02, EDG 4 Condition Monitor (P/S): 10 / 10 Armor: 9 Limits: Physical 7, Mental 6, Social 5 Physical Initiative: 10/15+4D6 Active Skills: Acting Group 5, Athletics Group 1,
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Off my meds
So, a few weeks back, I got a renewal of my prescription for cipralex. But I misplaced it. So I never bothered to refill it, and when I got down to a handful of pills left, I lowered my dosage, so I wouldn’t be going off them cold turkey. I believe I’m starting to feel
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Arthur – Hobo Mage
Arthur – created with Hero Lab® Arthur METATYPE: HUMAN B 2, A 4, R 4, S 2, W 5, L 6/8, I 4, C 3, ESS 6, EDG 4, M 6 Condition Monitor (P/S): 9 / 11 Armor: 8 Limits: Physical 4, Mental 11, Social 6 Physical Initiative: 8+1D6 Astral Initiative: 8+3D6 Active Skills: Acting
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Shadowrun character building
Well, we’ve got Fluffles the Troll, being built for Ian. We’ve got a black mage for Lori. Kylie has an elf killer, and Chris has a second story man. My character feels a little unfinished. I feel like I need to rebuild him. Right now, he’s a powerful mage, but it feels like he’s lacking
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Horror movie – wormwood?
Eldritch wood is used in the construction of a ventriloquist’s dummy. Decades later, the puppet soaks up a puddle of blood. The murderer begins to hear voices during his act. Disturbing voices. They urge dark deeds. A few murders later, he is surprised when his arm is paralysed during his act. He numbly feels something
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Shadowrun character ideas.
We’ve got our DM back and we are looking at starting a new campaign. I’m a little unsure about what to play, since the characters seem to have a lack of cohesion at this point. We’ve got Katsu, a corporation-raised infiltration man, a mage who is very focused on avoiding conflict, and someone who is
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Outings and such, part two.
I got a message this morning from my mother. She’d been able to see the thread that I had previously mentioned. She’s aware that I’m involved in the kink community, so this wasn’t a shock to her. Had the situation been different, that could have been rather stressful. For many people, what I’ve just described
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Outing and Such.
Well, originally today’s post was possibly going to be my grumbling about the difference between short term skills and long term skills, with regards to relationships, and to BDSM in particular, and how mistaking short term skills for long term can lead to a fair bit of trouble. Or possibly about the whole community charity
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Code blue?
I plan to write more often, I’m aiming to write daily, and I will be ranting more. Likely I will offend some people. Consider this your disclaimer. When I first created this site, I wanted a place where I could speak my mind freely without it impacting on the TOU of a few sites or
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Empathy Training tools.
My copy of …and then, we held hands. has arrived. It’s a strange board game, and the writings about it have mentioned this. It can be played in silence, with both players showing what they have, attempting to work together to reach a common goal, for if one of you can’t use their cards to
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Earthquake bandwagon
So, last night, at around twenty to midnight, there was a brief thump or rumble, as a M4.9 earthquake happened about 23Kms north of Victoria, about 45Kms underground. Relevance of the details? Well, the fact that it was deep underground means it probably wasn’t a prelude to the big one that people have been predicting.
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Blood Rage!
So, we played our first game of Blood Rage today. It was pretty enjoyable. The drafting mechanics were interesting, especially since nobody knew too much about what to expect. We found a few combos that felt a bit broken, like the leader who could travel after battle, pillaging around the board during the first age.
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2016 approaches.
Starting the year off with the end of Noir. Probably my last kink event for the foreseeable future. While I enjoy spending time with some of the people in the community and have the wisdom to might come in handy for some people, I seem to be lacking in some aspects that seem to be
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Post defense parity.
Well, I just did a training scenario where I had a man in high gear with a rubber knife stab me multiple times, with my objective being to kill him before I passed out from blood loss. Apparently I did pretty good at it. Had I been smarter, I’d have removed my glasses first, but
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Database flop
A few weeks back, some entries and some comments vanished off the blog, because there was an issue with the mysql migration. They’ve been recovered, in the form of a database backup, I’m just not sure it’s worth the effort to get extract them and put them back up. It was interesting, because one entry
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Adjusting to Days.
So, with everything that’s happened at work, I’ll be working day shift for the next while, which actually works really well for me, in theory. It is very different, since I’ve been working the evening shift for at least 9 months now. I’ve gotten used to not having a social life, not being able to
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Exploded Example, Conflict
This past weekend, I took a friend with me to Noir. It was his first time there though he ran into a few people he knew, mostly from his days in the electronic music scene or from providing medical services at music festivals. Initially, I kept an eye on him, to make sure he was
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Weekend update.
So, I’m sitting here, on my “long” weekend, doing nothing much, waiting for the clocks to align so I can proceed. I’m going to be heading down to OV soon to pick up the Van, taking it to the lock up, loading it up with furniture, and then driving that down into a back alley,
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Removal of toxins.
Orphaned by choice. Today, I’ve added the majority of my family to the block list on my phone. If they want to contact me, they can reach me through email. The obvious exception is Gram. I’ve done this because my interactions with my family have been a negative experience for me for nearly as long
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The DKIS Problem
The DKIS Problem a shorthand term for pair of competency related issues known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect and Impostor Syndrome. In simplest terms, a lack of perspective means that people will misjudge their abilities, with less introspective individuals judging themselves superior, while same time, more introspective individuals will judge that the tasks were simple. This
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The thing about Tesla
So, someone on my facebook feed posted something about Telsa recently, specifically about the likelihood of the claims of his technology being “snake oil”, and exaggerated over the years. Obviously part of the reason for this is the PR engine that changed the story, both for the positive and the negative, because of the conflict
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Writing Session X4Z5P6
Garth and I are sitting here, having a beer, watching Youtube and doing some writing. We just watched the Suicide Squad trailer, and I was reminded of a previous script that I’d intended to put together ages back. So, the final lines in the trailer, are Joker saying, “I’m not going to kill you, I
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I’ve lost an touchstone.
I was less than 20 when I moved out of my parent’s place. Before that I’d moved from the upper floor, where everyone lived, down in the basement, probably when I was still in elementary. So I’ve been moving away from my parents for probably about two-thirds of my life now. Still, I’ve used that
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This weekend was brutal
So, weekends, they’re a time to relax from the stress of the 40+ hour work week; Down time. This weekend, not so much. I was asked to dogsit for my parents, since everyone was out of town. Then I was told that the dogsitting also included taking the dogs for a 2 hour walk, during
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Starlit Citadel, and Advertising.
Starlit Citadel is my FLGS of choice, despite not being all that local to me, having hours that totally don’t overlap with my work schedule, and them being more a warehouse than a store. I met them a few years back at Gottacon, and we’ve run into each other at various places since then. I’ve
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stall
Writing-wise, I’ve stalled. I haven’t produced a piece in weeks, and I certainly haven’t been keeping up anything resembling recent activities posts. Of course a partial reason for that would be the lack of recent activities. I haven’t produced anything for Erotic Vancouver since the pre-Rascals article I put up, even though there’s been a
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Ashes… Its coming.
So, my pre-order of Ashes is officially on it’s way here. Its been shipped out of Snakes and Lattes in Toronto. So, I’ll have a copy by Wednesday or Thursday night. This means I need to plan a session for Saturday/Sunday. Who wants to give this game a chance?
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Laughing Buddha’s Sexting App
It was Laughing Buddha who started it all. He wrote the original code, built the wrapper, and hooked in the APIs. And he did it with such subtlety that even though people expected the malware, they didn’t have a clue what it did. They figure it was harmless, just a bit of market research, some
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epiphany – even in absence
I’ve had something of an anti-epiphany, a moment of knowing that I know not. It’s still technically an epiphany, since it’s a striking realization, but at the same time, it’s also a lack it, since it was also a moment of profound emptiness. There is the knowing of the things, and that is wisdom, and
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Ashes : Rise of the Pheonixborn – It’s exciting.
There is a game being published by Plaid Hat Games, that I’m really excited about. It’s a card game, where you’re playing a mage, that uses dice for the spell power pool. It comes with a half-dozen heroes, with a premade deck for each, but also with rules for building your own decks and for
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Games I should be playing.
Solo Friday – its apparently really good. Solo Survival. Mageknight – complicated, but the gold standard for solo games. A tough nut to crack. Maybe my goal for #GencantSolo. Lord of the Rings – solid mechanics, good thematic experience. Robinson Crusoe : – another solid game with some interesting mechanics. Based on the novel, it’s
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Scencest – practical or paranoid?
Many years ago, when asked why I didn’t date a particular girl, I used the term scencest to explain my discomfort with dating someone inside a small and insular community. Too many crossing paths, too many common friends, or worse too many common ex’s. The BDSM community has grown a bit since then, but I
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Nacho Quixote
Complete with a little toy windmill. not my idea just something that made me smile
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33 M4f – looking for someone who appreciates me.
I think I’m pretty awesome, but I’m having trouble finding someone who agrees and I have chemistry with. It seems that either we have chemistry and they hate me, or we are fond of each other but it isn’t anything more. My fear of being a toxic misogynistic asshole has led to me double thinking
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Material chained.
The other day, I cited material possessions as the chains that bind us to our ruts, or at least me to mine. My biggest chain would be my board game collection. It has grown large and menacing over the last few years; were it to pounce on someone, that person would surely be crushed under
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negentropic agent
For the longest time, I’ve had difficulty in defining what my beliefs in a format that I was able to convey to others. All language is layered with context and nuance, and I found that when I tried to adapt or adopt philosophical terms or concepts as a method of creating a short hand or
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triadecimconseco
triadecimconseco To cut into 13 pieces. But badly translated and mashed together, implying that the person doesn’t really understand what they’re doing, since they’ve combined greek prefixes with latin phrases. Implying that they have an incomplete and perhaps flawed understanding of the mysticism that they’re trying to invoke.
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Current status
Stunning bout of depression/apathy has hit me hard over the weekend. I’m suffering from a serious lack of motivation. Partially this is related to my realisation that the rut I’m in is much deeper and harder to get out of than I’d previously understood. It is partially because some aspects of it have been established
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The new thing… Vigilante Justice
The new thing… Vigilante Justice So, my sources tell me that a masked vigilante is out there, in the city. Well, that’s nothing new. This one, is perhaps a bit different though. He’s driving an electric car, wearing a wrestling mask, and carrying a sawzall. He’s been seen parking in front of houses that are watering
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Characters
I’m thinking I should put together a page that lists the various characters who appear in this list, separating those who exist from those who don’t and providing as much or as little real world context for them as they feel comfortable with. This was motivated by aRedBaroness joining the board games and DerBlob having
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Shadowrun returning
So, it sounds like we’ve for enough players to actually have a Sunday shadowrun start up again. aRedbaroness has an elf adept she’s working on, specialising in some variant of killing hands. DerBlob has a Dr.Nick style streetdoc he’s building. I’m probably doing a face mage again, probably face secondary. Hopefully this time it won’t
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Social Media Pattern Extraction.
This morning, twitter once again suggested I follow a person who I dislike. While I haven’t seen any direct evidence that this individual is abusive and violates boundaries, I’ve seen plenty of secondary evidence, including accounts from individuals. It bothers me that because this individual has friends in common with me on twitter, or has
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Wandering homeward
Left work more than half an hour late, after a long call with a customer who couldn’t accept that his issue was not really something we could support. DNS issues, and he can’t log into his router to change the DNS. And he’s managed to wipe the settings from his ata (analog telephone adaptor), which
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tech woes
I haven’t been writing much lately, partially because I had a major technological failure the other day and managed to have both my Nexus 5 and my 14″ chromebook cease functioning. My ancient macbook doesn’t really have the battery to be of much use as a writing tool, if it isn’t plugged in someplace. My
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Security Implementation
Yubikey and LastPass, are a pair of services that I use for storing my passwords and personal data. The Yubikey functions as an authentication token for the LastPass login, and is used to decrypt the password vault. In theory, I should consider a service where the passwords aren’t stored on their cloud, even in an
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Design – Combined SoaC + VPN as a secure thin client.
Earlier tonight, while discussing ideas for potential new products, I think we accidentally stumbled onto something big. Something that could be worth building. Something that could actually be worth putting together a kickstarter / indiegogo campaign for. Something that is keeping me awake, so I’m going to type it and hope that clears my head.
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Netflix algorithm
So, people claim that Netflix have stated that they generated the House of Cards based the fact that they saw a solid intersection between people who liked Kevin Spacey and people who enjoyed watching political thrillers. And they’re using this to generate other shows. This gives me two thoughts, the first being, we need to
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time of long shadows
Recently, I began taking steps to change some things in my life. It’s unclear what all I plan to change, but I believe that I’d like to have more options. One way to get those options is to remove the obligations I’ve got. So I began searching for someone who could pick up the slack,
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Doomtown!
Saturday Afternoon, I headed over to Magic Stronghold, to check out the new Doomtown : Reloaded Organized play sessions. I was late, because of the events of the night before, and the extended period of taking care of Nikita and Guinness, over at my parent’s place. And the transit problems created by Hat’s Off Day,
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Summoning
There was trouble nearby, so I went to save the day. Summoned by the cries of a damsel in distress. An outcast, who has been banned from a few events, is being creeperly to a newbie. And someone who I’d brought the hammer down on, called me for backup, mostly subconsciously. I’d been in bed,
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Odd Thomas (The book and the Movie)
This morning, I finished reading the novel Odd Thomas. I’d previously seen the movie, and like Horns, John Dies at the End, and pretty much every other movie that comes from a book, I’ve heard the book was better. Since I’d bought myself a kobo the other day, I’d loaded Odd Thomas onto it, and
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Recipe for disaster?
Minimal Sleep, Bad Dreams, and possible neuro-chemical shifts. There is a small chance that today might be my last day at my current job. It’s actually probably vanishingly small, but right now the little voice in the back of my head that warns me about such things won’t let me forget it. (No, I don’t
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Seeds of distrust
I have trouble dealing with passive aggressive or deceptive individuals. If I get told something second hand, whether or not I accept it as the truth depends on various factors, but if I find out that it was manipulation, and someone attempts the same play again, it’ll irk me. In theory it should anger me,
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Advice on ants
A dying man once told me that time was like a river of angry ants, devouring our flesh and pressing ever onward, down a path we can’t accurately predict, leaving a clear swath behind them. While most of you can accept that part, it was the rest of it you’d have trouble with. It’s when
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Books I’ve read recently. 1/X
As I mentioned the other day, I picked up an ereader, with the intention of reading more. I’ve had it for a weekend and a bit, and in that time I’ve read two and a half books. I read the Dresden novel skin games, the first novel in a different urban fantasy series, the Iron
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Our Karma Distribution System
A while back, we decided that we wanted to figure out a way to make the karma system more interactive and more real time. We took the concept of bennies from either Dresden/Fate or Savage World, and brought it into our Shadowrun 4th Edition game. Players were given a handful of Poker chips that had
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The arcology podcast
Dimestore and I should record some segments for the arcology podcast. We live lives too chaotic for regular podcasts, so this would be a way to test out some of the basics, and its on a topic we can spend hours discussing. Shadowrun.
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Goodreads and an ereader.
So, the other day, I decided to buy myself an e-reader. After considering a few options, I decided on a kobo. Figured I should go with the Canadian option, with all things being equal. I like the way it displays text, and I’m pretty happy with how easy it is to load books onto it,
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Tales from Tech Support…
A few years back, I was working for staffing company, on loan to a large company, in a division that provided technical support for their point of sale devices, which were installed at retail locations. The division I was in was entirely POS support, specifically for this particular retail chain. The company had some odd