Wisdom from my formative years

Marine Corps Ettiquette

1. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.
2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is
expensive
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.
5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)
6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a friend with a long gun.
7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running.
9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on "pucker factor" than the inherent accuracy of the gun.
10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. Have a plan.
13. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work.
14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
15. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
16. Don't drop your guard.
17. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees.
18. Watch their hands. Hands kill. In God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where I can see them.
19. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.
20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.
21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
22. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
23. Your number one option for personal security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.
24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with a "4."

Why I won't die in a car crash

It was a dark and stormy night. But not really. Actually, it was dark, but not stormy. It was late winter, probably about February of '04. I was driving on winding country roads on an overcast night, gray and black and the brown of northern Illinois farmland, broken up by occasional curves and groves of trees.

The temp was below freezing, and I was going about 45 miles an hour or so. I had a sweet car, the first car that I'd -really- enjoyed, the first time I'd gotten to treat myself in that way. It was a platinum Honda Civic EX, spoiler, half mask, really silly. But I loved it. It was a manual, which I also loved. Not really the weather to be zipping around, bu tthe roads were clear.

Or so I thought. At the bottom of a gradual hill, the road turned gently to the left. But my Honda and I kept going straight, despite how I turned the wheel. The car was sliding.

Then the wheels caught. For a bit.

The car swung to the right, hard, I over compensated to avoid flipping, and the car held, but went into a spin. Hurdling down the road and taking up both lanes in a flat spin. No one was coming in the other lane, thank God.

As my rate of spin increased, the car was drifting almost leisurely into the other lane, and then over the side of the road. There was a steep embankment ( which I spun down ) that led to a copse of trees. The car stoped when it wrapped around one of these.

I felt the whole thing happening, moment by moment.

Coming down the hill.
The car sliding.
The wheels catching.
The spin starting.
The spin getting tighter.
I'm across the road, and over the side.
Heading for the trees.
Still spinning.

A loud crash.
Lots of safety glass everywhere.
Not spinning anymore.

No sound, now.
Air blowing on me.
Cold winter air, not so bad. Some small flakes of snow.

Pellets of glass.
Everywhere.

My heart is beating.

Gotta move.

Gotta move.



I got out, and stumbled around for a bit. I was probably in shock, but I held together pretty well. My wrist was cut up a bit, and I spent a few hours in the hospital for x-rays and scans and such. But I was fine. The only place in the car I'd been driving not completely destroyed was the seat I was sitting in.




I thought about it for a long time. Trying to impose some meaning on the pattern of what had happened. It wasn't too much longer after this that I figured out I was going to get a divorce. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a cause-effect relationship there.

But I knew that I wasn't going to spend too much time doing things I didn't want to do, anymore.

And I haven't, for the most part. Even though it might not ultimate be in mybest interest, even though it might lead to pain, embarrassment, or silliness... I pretty much do what I want. Not like a firehose that no one's holding onto, not like that. I mean I don't let pedestrian things like people's attitudes, their perception of me, petty fear or probably common sense get in the way when I -feel- something strongly.

I'll do that thing. I'll swallow my pride, maybe. I'll say the words. I'll push when I should give up.

It doesn't always work that way, but it happens much more now, more then it did before the Honda was wrapped around the tree, up near Harvard.

But probably the single most certain thing I learned from that crash was that I wasn't going to die in a car accident. Well, probably not.

How GenCon saved my life. Probably.

Last week, I left on Wednesday to head down to GenCon instead of my normal Thursday. When I leave to head south I typically depart the Madison are at about 4-5pm.

Last Thursday, while I was safe in Nerdville running for Mayor, -40- tornadoes touched down in southern central Wisconsin. This happened at exactly the time I'd be driving through that area. It'd be a pretty long gauntlet; it take about 45-50 minutes to get from Madison to the great state of Illinois, where they've apparently been keeping up with their No Tornadoes bill.

It would have been uncool, to drive through these storms. I have a few pictures of damage, but I probably won't post them. Imagine houses made of matchsticks, and someone grinding them up.

: /

Apparently, that's another way I wasn't meant to "merge with the infinite"; a tornado accident, or a car crash. When I have a bit of time, I'll write something about the car crash thing.

Party on, eh?

On Wisconsin!

Apparently, my school is the top party school in the US. Hilarious.

On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Stand up, Badgers, sing!
"Forward" is our driving spirit,
Loyal voices ring.
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Raise her glowing flame
Stand, Fellows, let us now
Salute her name!

Firefly

A very cool show: Firefly

It's SciFi. It's western. It's a cross-genre, well written, well scored, perfect example of an awesome show that got mishandled ( by Fox ) and cancelled, despite it being cool-as-hell. Cool as hell enough to spend millions of dollars on it to make a movie two years after it was cancelled.

the only time that's ever happened, by the way.

I try not to get too involved in TV shows; most of them are nowhere near worth the time. At the moment, Battlestar Galactica is the exception here.

And now Firefly is, as well. The good thing about it being cancelled is that it's out on DVD and I can watch all the episodes at my liesure.

Nipple

So... got my nipple pierced.

Yep.

Yes, it hurts. Not all the time, though. Yes, it's a pain to clean, but the regularity of it is good for me, as I have so little of that in my life, at times. No, I haven't reaped any of the rumored sexual/tactile bonuses of it yet. Yes, my mom would have an anurism, even though I'm quite an adult now, thank you.

Despite my new love of interior design, we're still quite hetero, me and my nipple piercing. Doubtless the men of the world are still threatened by this, and the women are praising Allah.

You know that time in your life when maybe you dye your hair r e a l l y blonde, or maybe just get it radically cut? That's like this. As I like my hair the way it is, I just got my nipple pierced. Its a sort of physical expression of a new start. Something a bit wild that hardly a soul in the world would suspect from me. It hurt like, well, getting a piece of metal stuck through my skin. I might have screamed like Ned Flanders when they put the clamp on, but Miami Girl was there, and we were holding hands, and well, ya know...



So anyway. I have this piercing now. Two weeks of cleaning, keeping an eye out for infection, and wondering about it. I did it for a lot of reasons, as I said, but a few of them push their way to the front of my mind:


* I'd thought about doing it before, so it wasn't totally new
* No one woud guess it about me, and I like that
* After Miami Girl got hers done, she turned to me and with much conviction said "your turn"
* I wanted to see if I was up to it, if I had the nerve to go through with it
* It is, after all, easily reversible. If you don't want it, it comes right out
* Possibly the cheesiest reason- If things with Miami Girl had gone anywhere, then I thought this would be a really cool story, a really cool memory and shared experience. I have a feeling about this, and I'm going to do it right. That means nipple piercing. Well, you know what I mean


So there it is. There, on my left pectoral.

Nerd Serengeti

I am roaming the Serengeti Plain of nerdness, the floor of GenCon in Indy.

I am at once native and observing scientist; at home among the various sub-species of gaming nerds, while also more then a casual observer of the different families, phylum, genus and species that surround me and participate with me in my nerdier hobbies.

To classify myself, I am primarily a paper-based roleplaying game player; Dungeons and Dragons, as well as a few others such as In Nomine, Traveller, and Shadowrun will catch my eye. I am quite different from, say, the computer-based roleplaying gamer, or the Collectible Card Game ( CCG ) plaer, or the mini-painter.

My particular family of gaming nerds does not outwardly present in any particular way; we do not dress alike, or in radical clothing or costume. We do not have to carry about portable cases of thousands of cards, racks of paints and stocks of figures. At most the gamer of my persuasion has a backpack with a few rules, some paper, dice and a few necessary rulebooks, by all estimates one of the lighter-traveling of the species here. My type of gamer is typically intelligent, and at least semi-social: it is hard to play my type of games except in a group. Appearances vary, though it is a common mythology that the roleplaying gamer is unkempt, unshowered, and unsavory. This is to some small extent true, but mostly we’re all pretty agreeable, physically and mentally. We do not cave the short-term buzz or excitement of CCG players of computer gamers; we are more likely to be drawn to the elegance of a gaming system, or the lengthy unfolding of a good plotline.

I also enjoy a few collectible card games, which are also well-represented on the floors and rooms of GenCon, but most of those gathered here to play CCGs are nationally ranked; and I am a pretty pedestrian player. I enjoy the games, but I find it takes too much time to immerse myself in any of them to the point where I could offer any credible play to most gathered here. My favorite game is based on the mythologies of Japan and China, called Legend of the Five Rings. The game is often described as “the thinking man’s CCG”.

There are different areas of network computers where people can lay xbox, PS2 and PC games. While I enjoy these, particularly SOCOMII and Quidditch World Cup, I am an even more casual player of computer games then I am of card games. It’s something I do totally on my own time, and I have no desire to get in the way of more serious players.

There are huge areas for miniature-based games as well… historical re-enactments of battles from the past, starship battles of the future, fantasy battles between warbands set in the period of never-was. I enjoy watching these battles, but even more then that I like watching the people who take part in them. They are down to a member a group of people dedicated to precision, attention to detail, and patience. Their tiny metal figures are mostly painted with exquisite detail, and their settings are also similarly lavish, encompassing many large tabletops with landscape appropriate to the genre. This activity represents a very interesting form of immersion, where the “reality” has a high level of fidelity, albeit on a small scale. The people who engage in these activities can be seen to glaze over a bit, as they “see” the action happening in their mind’s eye. I am only an observer here, familiar with none o the rules systems and not having the skill or patience to paint my own miniatures.

Board games are also very popular here at GenCon, which embraces all types of gaming in one way or another. There is a large ballroom with easily a hundred large tables set up, and many many different types of board games available for check-out and play. In much the same way one would start a pick-up game of basketball in the neighborhood back home, strangers gather with friendly spontaneity here for pick-up games of Risk or Axis and Allies. There are mostly strategy or competitive games available… but also a small amount of more traditional games such as Monopoly and Sorry. I’ll spend a bit of time in this place, as Risk and all it’s contemporary flavors are favorites of mine.

Gaming is just one aspect of how one can pass time here at GenCon. There are many, many different classes, workshops and seminars about all things gaming-related- building better adventures, getting your ideas published by major gaming companies, how to paint your minis like a pro, and so on. Also, there seems to be a great deal of overlap between gamers and people who enjoy writing, so there are many writers’ classes offered. Writing novels, short stories, character development and publishing tips are common topics. I’ll go to a few of these, as I am definitely interested in writing. I’ve also already attended a few lectures on game development and design, as well as marketing a new game.

The main area of the convention of course in the Persian bazaar of people who sell items reevant to the gaming industry. The Exhibitor’s Hall is always the most crowded place at GenCon, row after row of decorated booth selling games, dice, software, minis, books, art, and so on having to do with gaming, or other tangential interests such as SciFi and fantasy, anime and monsters of all stripes. I’ll spend a bit of time here everyday, looking at the wares but also doing a great deal of people-watching.

Other things to do at GenCon: walk in the art galleries and chat up the artists; duck into a movie room and catch some anime or hong kong action film; Stop a game developer and chat about how he is shaping the game you love; get something to eat at one of the cool places local to downtown Indy; people watch; Attend great-and-speaks with various celebrities who act in, write, direct or produce movies that gamers would like.

Oh yea, and blog : ) And sleep.

Blogging while buzzed

Blogging, in yellow.

Just a bit intoxicated.

Nothing to be worried about, certainly... and I'm not driving. I'm down in Normal, of all places; the night before GenCon. Chris and I came down to crash at Andy's new apartment ( he's a good friend and a Lit major here ) before we head to the convention tomorrow. We did a bit of partying; that would make twice in one week ( technically ), which is a bit much for me. But I'll live. I'm with friends.

This is the first real time I've spent on the campus of ISU since leaving here 13 years ago. It has the kind of easy familiarity of an old, comfy shirt you haven't seen in year, but stumble upon while cleaning. I breathe it in, and images of days and months and years past wash over me.

I remember the summer Miami Girl and I shared here; a pre-session class in Statistics, days together, mornings tossing and turning on a bed in her apartment. Getting used to being with her, learning about her. The slow build to that first kiss. Feeling for the first time I was with someone very sharp, and smiling broadly because of it.

I remember her being over that night before I went to the ER with meningitis, being worried and compassionate. To hear her talk of it now, the girl she was back then, she had no idea who she was at that point in her life... a confused, entangled girl.

But even though she's grown so much, even though she has seen so much and defined herself so very well... the hint of the caring, compassionate woman she was to become could be found in the girl that stayed over with a -very- sick boyfriend... holding him when he was barely aware of anything around him.

Then 15 years later... well. It's a small world, sometimes.

In a good way.

Off to bed, breathing Normal air, the distant sounds of a college winding down it's summer before the fall semester begins blowing in the air like the leaves that are coming.

100 years; a lifetime

100 years - Five for Fighting

I'm 15 for a moment
Caught in between 10 and 20
And I'm just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are

I'm 22 for a moment
She feels better than ever
And we're on fire
Making our way back from Mars

15 there's still time for you
Time to buy and time to lose
15, there's never a wish better than this

When you only got 100 years to live

I'm 33 for a moment
Still the man, but you see I'm a they
A kid on the way
A family on my mind

I'm 45 for a moment
The sea is high
And I'm heading into a crisis
Chasing the years of my life

15 there's still time for you
Time to buy,
Time to lose yourself
Within a morning star
15 I'm all right with you
15, there's never a wish better than this

When you only got 100 years to live

Half time goes by
Suddenly you’re wise
Another blink of an eye67 is gone
The sun is getting high

We're moving on...

I'm 99 for a moment
Dying for just another moment
And I'm just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are

15 there's still time for you
22 I feel her too
33 you’re on your way
Every day's a new day...

15 there's still time for you
Time to buy and time to choose
Hey 15, there's never a wish better than this

When you only got 100 years to live

100 years; a lifetime

100 years - Five for Fighting

I'm 15 for a moment
Caught in between 10 and 20
And I'm just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are

I'm 22 for a moment
She feels better than ever
And we're on fire
Making our way back from Mars

15 there's still time for you
Time to buy and time to lose
15, there's never a wish better than this

When you only got 100 years to live

I'm 33 for a moment
Still the man, but you see I'm a they
A kid on the way
A family on my mind

I'm 45 for a moment
The sea is high
And I'm heading into a crisis
Chasing the years of my life

15 there's still time for you
Time to buy,
Time to lose yourself
Within a morning star
15 I'm all right with you
15, there's never a wish better than this

When you only got 100 years to live

Half time goes by
Suddenly you’re wise
Another blink of an eye67 is gone
The sun is getting high

We're moving on...

I'm 99 for a moment
Dying for just another moment
And I'm just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are

15 there's still time for you
22 I feel her too
33 you’re on your way
Every day's a new day...

15 there's still time for you
Time to buy and time to choose
Hey 15, there's never a wish better than this

When you only got 100 years to live

The Right Words

Roleplay is a little like writing fiction, eh? Here's a good article with a title designed to get your attention. It's about the use of different terms in erotic fiction, and definitely interesting reading...

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=42607

Enjoy.

Cyberplayers are losers. Right?

Cyberplayers are Losers

Of course everyone knows that anyone who roleplays online, everyone who does anything from cybersex to describe taking off an overcloak to founding a house that exists only as little ones and zeros must have too much free time and not enough social skill to get along in the " real world". Right?

Okay, maybe not.

There certainly are people with too much free time, here online, puttering about. It's also not too hard to find someone who really doesn't work or play well with others. Some people even have both problems; Some of them seem so normal and well adjusted at first, that when they pull back the Mission Impossible-type mask of normalcy and waggle the bug-eyes and giant-tongue of mania at you like a cartoon circus clown, it comes as quite a shock.

But there are also one or two perfectly normal people out there. Somewhere.

Where the Normal People Are

So what are some possible characteristics of these few people? Let's run down a list of possibilities. People who are quick to judge sometimes work well with lists, so if you happen to be one of the two ( or so ) normal people out there, you can give this list to a critical friend or loved one.

• Curious about something new maybe you're just naturally curious, and you'd like to give something a whirl in a safe, non-threatening environment.
• Maybe your preferred activity online is sexual, and you have this thing about catching diseases, and having parts of your body inflame, itch or fall off. No one ever contracted an STD from bopping here online.
• Perhaps you are going without real-life social interaction, for some reason. Maybe you're a caregiver with very little ability to leave the home. Maybe you're new to an area, or everyone who lives near you is an idiot.
• Perhaps you are disabled, and can't easily bring your powerchiar or screen reader down to the local watering hole to swing dance.
• Variety is the spice of life, and maybe you ain't got none. Your partner is oppressive, you don't feel like going out, or you don't wish to take Prozac to overcome your social anxiety. Your daily life is humdrum, so you'd like to see what it might be like to walk on the wild side, without risking arrest, deportation, or not being allowed in the Safeway again.
• You're an A-list actor or public personality, and you would love to interact with "normal" people, not paparazzi or sycophantic publicists and stalker fan club members without the benefit of a motorcade or a velvet rope.
• You live in a small town, and getting wild and crazy means going to the local diner and ordering just dessert, or hitting the bowling alley on Wednesday instead of League Thursday, and you are thirsting for something a little more...
• Strict religion plays a part in your life, or maybe just your household, and maybe the only way you can talk to members of the opposite sex or wear pants or do men-type stuff is online, with the infidels.
• Perhaps you're HIV positive and contrary to public opinion you're still a normal human being with normal needs, and you don't feel like infecting anyone while being frisky.
• Maybe you're lover is on a different coast, or your best friend is in Akron while you ( thankfully ) are not... and you'd like to interact with them anyway.
• Maybe you're a physical scientist doing you're stint at Ice Station Zebra, or a member of the military off somewhere in the MMFD, or an Astronaut on Freedom or anyone who is -way- isolated and would like just a bit of human interaction.
• Maybe you've been traumatized by the the boyfriend, the ex-wife, or the bitches you play bridge with, and would like to ease back into this whole social-interaction thing, a step or two at a time.
• It could be that you might not have won the lotto recently, but would like to found a house, live in a mansion, buy a fleet of merchant ships, and have minions do your bidding. Maybe you're stuck at home, and would just like to open up a nice little bake shop, and most likely will never do so in real life.
• It could be that by some strange happenstance, you don't have Britany's body, or Brad's looks, or Angelina's flat stomach... and wouldn't t be cool to see what it would like to step into some different, more socially-identifiable hotness then what you are currently sporting?

More, please. This list is by no means exhaustive. Duh.

Intro

went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

~Henry David Thoreau