Ravings of a Textual Deviant

I know it’s a busy day when I put 70-some miles on my car doing errands, and go through not one, but two to-do lists. And still have stuff left over. Between being sick last week and in jury duty on Monday morning, I was waaaaaay behind. And naturally, in the course of catching up, I found plenty of additional (occasionally unrelated) things that need doing. In the process of getting caught up on lab stuff with my dad, I found out that one of my cousins just had a baby. (Congrats, Marc & Kendra.)

I don’t even remember everywhere I’ve been, and I still have the lists.

You’re Prufrock and Other Observations!
by T.S. Eliot
Though you are very short and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you’ve really heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

You’re Canada!
People make fun of you a lot, but they’re stupid because you’ve got a much better life than they do. In fact, they’re probably just jealous. You believe in crazy things like human rights and health care and not dying in the streets, and you end up securing these rights for yourself and others. If it weren’t for your weird affection for ice hockey, you’d be the perfect person.
Take
the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

I can’t deny the ice hockey thing…

I’ve been between contracts for a week and half now, which is a long enough time for me to start sending out resumes. I spent most of the morning doing so, and by lunchtime, I’d already had a call back. It looks like a good prospect. Fingers crossed.

“On a matter of such importance, the voice of the people must be heard”

Ahem. I am an American person, and I say that consenting adults who are otherwise unencumbered ought to be allowed to form marriages, domestic partnerships, or just shack up, according to their preferences.

I say that legalized discrimination against ANY group is wrong, and undermines all other antidiscrimination efforts. I want all of my friends and family to have the option and the opportunity to enjoy the same social and financial benefits that I do. You want to promote family values? Let everyone have the opportunity to be part of a family.

I say that society changes, and social institutions must change with the times or become irrelevant. I further say that the government has no business telling religions how to define marriage. I say that if George Bush isn’t favor of homosexual marriage, he shouldn’t try it himself. Otherwise, back the hell off.

And finally, I say that I am a registered voter in the State of Indiana, and I can’t wait ’til November.

Of all the gin joints…

For the third Wednesday Weird, we’ll tackle the ultimate gaming cliche: “So, you’re all at the bar….”

I’m pretty sure that since the earliest days of gaming, there have been shadowy men hanging out in bars looking to hire complete strangers for extremely important missions. Need a quick bit of action in your game? A bar fight is always a good pick-me-up.

So, we know the missions you pick up in a bar can get weird, but how can the scenario in the bar get weird?

Anything can happen at the Rusty Nail, an omniversal franchise that appears in nearly every game I’ve ever run (along with its cofranchise, the Cheap Hotel).

When you stop and think about it, the idea of an omniversal franchise is pretty weird in and of itself. Ultimately, who is getting the fees? In the world of the Lunar Ellipse, Nicky Finn (who has many analogues himself) is credited with inventing the idea of the franchise, but the idea had to come from somewhere.

Wow..time flies. This week Ginger asks

What inspires you to create characters? Do you have partially-developed characters in mind for use when you get into a new campaign? Do you shop characters around, or do you come up with new characters when you get into a campaign? Why? If you GM, are you bothered by receiving a solicitation for a ?generic? character, or does it enthuse you to get a solid proposal even if it?s not closely tailored to your game?

As a player…
Most of the time, I create my characters for specific games. I like hang back a bit and see how the party shapes up before I dive in, probably because I’d hate to have to put a great idea on the back burner because it wasn’t appropriate to the current game. I’m more likely to come up with a character’s background and personality, then fill in the skill set as needed. The current Thursday game is Planescape, which leaves character background wide open. I wanted to play an Asian character, but I don’t really like Rokugan very much. Instead, I talked it over with Rob, and we decided that I could be from some backwater plane (literally, as my character is part aquatic elf, part water elemental) that resembled the sort of mythic, Tang-dynasty China that would eventually produce a Chinatown like the one in Big Trouble in Little China. I also wanted to play a character who was very attractive, charismatic, feminine and proper. The party ended up being a bit light on the magic-using, so she ended up as a Taoist sorceress. (Personally, I think it would’ve been much funnier if my original concept of a half-dragon warrior had worked out, but I’m satisfied.)

As a GM…
Usually, I prefer to let players have a lot rope to hang themselves of room to maneuver. I can’t imagine any of my regular crowd coming up with something too generic. I will do my level best to shoehorn a character into a campaign, provided the player is a) willing to work with me in that process b) willing to accept whatever disadvantages come along with the irregularity. Basically, if the player is truly happy with the character, I’ll go along. (If the player isn’t happy with the character, it’s my job as the GM to help him/her get the character game-ready.)

I got excused from jury duty today. Apparently, at least one of the attorneys prefers not to have people who are too nit-picky when it comes to questioning subtle assumptions. Given that a lot of my work as a technical writer requires me to spot and question assumptions, it’s hard for me to avoid it. After I was dismissed, I had lunch with a friend who happens to be an attorney, and the more I told her about the nature of the case (identifying information left out to protect the presumed innocent), the happier I am that I ended up not being on the jury…mostly because the more I thought about it, the worse things looked for the defendant. When the defense attorney repeatedly stresses (to every prospective juror) that his client doesn’t have to say anything and that the burden of proof is on the prosecutor, it’s not a good sign. I also found out that the reason the judge’s name was so familiar is that she presided over the trial of a nationally-recognized individual several years ago. You’d remember it; trust me.

On the other hand, I did get to watch the recently-released potential-juror motivational video, which for some reason kept stressing that the juror-selection process is totally random. Personally, I would have a lot less trouble believing that if I didn’t consistently get jury duty only within a month of voting for a certain major party in Marion County. Every single time I have voted for that party–jury duty. Voting third-party never lands me jury duty. I haven’t tried voting for the other major party; the spirit of experimentation only goes so far.

We all know that there’s no cure for the common cold, a fact that has irked me morethan a little this past week. But there are things you can do to make yourself more comfortable. My mother swears by washing her hair, for example. So, what do you do to make yourself a little less miserable?

No, it’s not that kind of post. It’s my house that’s been exposed.

When Ed and I bought our current house a little over three years ago, the landscaping was already in bad shape–overgrown, neglected, and sort of unfinished. By this morning, I had tree branches overhanging the roof and scratching at the eaves, a massive shrub blocking the clear view of an intersection, and out-of-control evergreens. All we had managed to get done was removing the extremely dead rosebush and some half-hearted pruning.

Tonight, though, it’s a different story. My yard has had the equivalent of an extreme haircut–like the time I had my knee-length hair cut to shoulder-length. (A move I have since regretted, but I digress…) Almost all the plantings have been reduced by half, the dangerous tree limbs are on their way to being someone else’s firewood, and I can see where the edges of the beds are.

Of course, this means I have no further excuse for putting off the spring cleanup, and getting on with some much-needed planting, edging, and mulching.

Well, no excuse other than my hereditary black thumb.