Blink and you'll miss it.
Oct. 9th, 2005 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackofallgeeksI keep wanting to post something, but every time I get around to it, I either find I have nothing to say, or I have no motivation to say it.
Tonight is kind of a combination of both.
So, right. Life has been moving along since the last time I posted anything of substance. When was that? It looks like October 2nd, which I guess isn't that long ago, but it feels like an eternity.
I got Miriam fixed. -smiles- The part came in, but I didn't have the tools I needed myself, so I took her into a bike shop. They fixed her up good in under half an hour, and even adjusted her brakes so that she stops when I tell her to, and all for no charge. She rides wonderfully; bike riding feels like everything grand I loved about driving, even if it doesn't get you as far. It's exhilarating. I really love Miriam.
I had a bet with one of my friends, who said I would most assuredly name my bike. She knew me well, and I knew even then that I'd lose the bet. If we were still speaking, I'd owe her a batch of cookies...
I found a place to play Magic out here; there's a card shop right by my church that has a good group of guys, and they play Drafts on Friday and Sealed on Saturdays. I bumped into them at the Ravnica pre-release, and I just played in a sealed-deck event they had last night. One of the guys, Ben, has a really high DCI rating (they're the 'Magic League' guys), and he helped me tune up my deck so that it actually did what I wanted it to do. I still lost because of a couple bad play mistakes, but I thought it was cool. Ben's a nice guy. And I'm glad I found this place, because Ravnica has reminded me why I'm still playing after nearly 10 years: I really love this game.
About half-way through the summer, I decided that I'd try to run a White Wolf game, using their new World of Darkness setting. I was a big fan of the old World of Darkness, but I came in late on that one (rather like with Rifts, another game I like but I've never played), and I always felt it was a little clumsy. That is, the games WANTED to play together, but they weren't designed that way, and even the individual games seemed to be watery and unfocused, losing their theme in a sea of unnecessary additions. The new System fixed both of these, specifically designing the games to run together, and cutting out a lot of the fat and really getting down to the basic feel of the games. I haven't finished reading through Awakening yet, but I thought both Requiem and Forsaken were great improvements.
So, I decided to get a game together. I had an idea for how I wanted it run: three characters tightly bound to each other by bonds of duty or affection, who begin the game as regular people. Run them through a few 'creepy things happen' stories, and then set each one down a different supernatural path; vampire, werewolf, and mage. Along the way it occurred to me to have each character a sort of archetype: Internal Conflict, Loss of Innocence, and Seeking Truth. Since I was moving out here I knew I'd need it to be run almost entirely online through email or message boards, and I knew that by virtue of being me I'd need to have players I could trust to help me tell the story.
I got my brothers Gene and Josh and my friend Anastasiya, and we met a few times, bounced ideas around, rolled up characters... and things stalled. None of them were able to give me any sort of character history aside from what was said verbally -- which is bad for me, because I forget things and if it's not written down, it's lost. The last message I heard from any of them regarding it was nearly a month ago when Gene said "I'll get to this (which at the time was just giving me a couple names) later this week." And that was it. And the biggest frustration is... Well, the BIGGEST is that I saw this coming. And I TOLD them that if things didn't happen, it would get pushed back, and pushed back, and people would lose interest and it would die before we even started. And they all said, "you're being ridiculous, it'll get done." Because, of course, why would starting back at school and dealing with classes and jobs and rent cause any kind of disruption?
But the bit that gets me right now is that there's a lot of world-building left for me to do -- but I can't do any of it without having the information I've asked these guys for. I've considered sitting down and writing them a nice email, spelling out (again, but in a different form) what I need from them but -- get this -- I haven't had time.
I hate feeling like all my best ideas are being wasted.
Which brings me to NanoWrimo. Put simply, I don't know what I'm doing. I had had a story, a modern-magic mage-punk style thing, but it's been so long since I worked on it -- mostly 'cause I couldn't get it to go anywhere -- that I haven't any idea how to start it up again. And I've been considering doing an alternate version of it (not that anyone would really know; the first one never saw much of the light of day), but I can't get any more inspiration for that than the first one. A part of me wants to try writing the story of Bethan O'Toole, my favored City of Hero's character, because I really like Beth, and I really like her story, but... Come on, a CoH fic?
Tangentially, there's a lot of grumbling going on around CoH these days, with murmurs of a Great Exodus when City of Villains comes out -- and not to CoV, either, but away from Paragon entirely. people say there's a Great Change coming with the expansion, which will be the cause of wailing and gnashing of teeth. And it makes me sad, because... Well, I don't know anyone who plays CoH. My brothers used to, but when they did we were all on different servers (none of them have ever played with Bethan), and we've never really been able to play together much, even irregularly. No one I know plays the game, and I haven't been able to make friends there the way that Josh did, and... I love the game, but every night I get on to just wander around for half an hour before getting off because there's no one to play with (and the game isn't nearly as fun playing solo, I think)... Well, it makes me sad, is all.
And I joined an online dating site specifically for Catholics, which is full of nice, pretty girls I'd actually date (unlike OKCupid), but I've had to reject two girls already (which is really hard for me; there's history to that), and I've met a girl who I think I kinda like (her name's Tessa and we've been talking for about a week now) but who I'm afraid doesn't think much of me (mostly, I think this just because I can be really negative sometimes, especially when Good Things could happen, as a self-defense against disappointment), and on top of that I'm juggling things with my friend Meghan, who likes me (and I kinda like her) but I don't feel comfortable with anything more than friends, and it all seems so very delicate.
The end.
Tonight is kind of a combination of both.
So, right. Life has been moving along since the last time I posted anything of substance. When was that? It looks like October 2nd, which I guess isn't that long ago, but it feels like an eternity.
I got Miriam fixed. -smiles- The part came in, but I didn't have the tools I needed myself, so I took her into a bike shop. They fixed her up good in under half an hour, and even adjusted her brakes so that she stops when I tell her to, and all for no charge. She rides wonderfully; bike riding feels like everything grand I loved about driving, even if it doesn't get you as far. It's exhilarating. I really love Miriam.
I had a bet with one of my friends, who said I would most assuredly name my bike. She knew me well, and I knew even then that I'd lose the bet. If we were still speaking, I'd owe her a batch of cookies...
I found a place to play Magic out here; there's a card shop right by my church that has a good group of guys, and they play Drafts on Friday and Sealed on Saturdays. I bumped into them at the Ravnica pre-release, and I just played in a sealed-deck event they had last night. One of the guys, Ben, has a really high DCI rating (they're the 'Magic League' guys), and he helped me tune up my deck so that it actually did what I wanted it to do. I still lost because of a couple bad play mistakes, but I thought it was cool. Ben's a nice guy. And I'm glad I found this place, because Ravnica has reminded me why I'm still playing after nearly 10 years: I really love this game.
About half-way through the summer, I decided that I'd try to run a White Wolf game, using their new World of Darkness setting. I was a big fan of the old World of Darkness, but I came in late on that one (rather like with Rifts, another game I like but I've never played), and I always felt it was a little clumsy. That is, the games WANTED to play together, but they weren't designed that way, and even the individual games seemed to be watery and unfocused, losing their theme in a sea of unnecessary additions. The new System fixed both of these, specifically designing the games to run together, and cutting out a lot of the fat and really getting down to the basic feel of the games. I haven't finished reading through Awakening yet, but I thought both Requiem and Forsaken were great improvements.
So, I decided to get a game together. I had an idea for how I wanted it run: three characters tightly bound to each other by bonds of duty or affection, who begin the game as regular people. Run them through a few 'creepy things happen' stories, and then set each one down a different supernatural path; vampire, werewolf, and mage. Along the way it occurred to me to have each character a sort of archetype: Internal Conflict, Loss of Innocence, and Seeking Truth. Since I was moving out here I knew I'd need it to be run almost entirely online through email or message boards, and I knew that by virtue of being me I'd need to have players I could trust to help me tell the story.
I got my brothers Gene and Josh and my friend Anastasiya, and we met a few times, bounced ideas around, rolled up characters... and things stalled. None of them were able to give me any sort of character history aside from what was said verbally -- which is bad for me, because I forget things and if it's not written down, it's lost. The last message I heard from any of them regarding it was nearly a month ago when Gene said "I'll get to this (which at the time was just giving me a couple names) later this week." And that was it. And the biggest frustration is... Well, the BIGGEST is that I saw this coming. And I TOLD them that if things didn't happen, it would get pushed back, and pushed back, and people would lose interest and it would die before we even started. And they all said, "you're being ridiculous, it'll get done." Because, of course, why would starting back at school and dealing with classes and jobs and rent cause any kind of disruption?
But the bit that gets me right now is that there's a lot of world-building left for me to do -- but I can't do any of it without having the information I've asked these guys for. I've considered sitting down and writing them a nice email, spelling out (again, but in a different form) what I need from them but -- get this -- I haven't had time.
I hate feeling like all my best ideas are being wasted.
Which brings me to NanoWrimo. Put simply, I don't know what I'm doing. I had had a story, a modern-magic mage-punk style thing, but it's been so long since I worked on it -- mostly 'cause I couldn't get it to go anywhere -- that I haven't any idea how to start it up again. And I've been considering doing an alternate version of it (not that anyone would really know; the first one never saw much of the light of day), but I can't get any more inspiration for that than the first one. A part of me wants to try writing the story of Bethan O'Toole, my favored City of Hero's character, because I really like Beth, and I really like her story, but... Come on, a CoH fic?
Tangentially, there's a lot of grumbling going on around CoH these days, with murmurs of a Great Exodus when City of Villains comes out -- and not to CoV, either, but away from Paragon entirely. people say there's a Great Change coming with the expansion, which will be the cause of wailing and gnashing of teeth. And it makes me sad, because... Well, I don't know anyone who plays CoH. My brothers used to, but when they did we were all on different servers (none of them have ever played with Bethan), and we've never really been able to play together much, even irregularly. No one I know plays the game, and I haven't been able to make friends there the way that Josh did, and... I love the game, but every night I get on to just wander around for half an hour before getting off because there's no one to play with (and the game isn't nearly as fun playing solo, I think)... Well, it makes me sad, is all.
And I joined an online dating site specifically for Catholics, which is full of nice, pretty girls I'd actually date (unlike OKCupid), but I've had to reject two girls already (which is really hard for me; there's history to that), and I've met a girl who I think I kinda like (her name's Tessa and we've been talking for about a week now) but who I'm afraid doesn't think much of me (mostly, I think this just because I can be really negative sometimes, especially when Good Things could happen, as a self-defense against disappointment), and on top of that I'm juggling things with my friend Meghan, who likes me (and I kinda like her) but I don't feel comfortable with anything more than friends, and it all seems so very delicate.
The end.
