Who Writes These Things, Seriously....

If one wants to be careful in this day and age, and not get raped or robbed, or have a kidney stolen and be left lying in an icy bathtub with a note from European Organ Black Market thieves, one has to pay careful attention to their actions.

For instance, it  has come to my attention that I could be the target of gang violence by flashing my headlights at another car.  Additionally, gangs are coming up with more and more complicated schemes to trap people in their nefarious plans.  Most recently, by putting fliers on car windows, leaving life-like babies in carseats by the side of the road, or even using old women to plead for help.   Now, I don't know about you, but as soon as I see a flyer in my window, or a baby by the side of the road, I hit the gas!  I'm not falling for one of those tricks!  And if I see some old woman yelling for help, let me tell you - I'm going the other way!

So really, who writes this stuff?  These things don't just pop into existence.  They have an origin, someone sat down and came up with this, and typed it up and sent it out.   Some of it is simple urban legend.  The "flashing your high beams and getting shot" thing has been around since at least the early '90's.  Obviously, urban legends have been around for a long long time, but the newest sub genre, the "Gangs preying on stupid white people" is particularly annoying, and in my opinion, racist.

While it could be argued that some urban legends are just morality stories, these gang related ones just seem to heighten the old "white people are afraid of black people" thing, but more than that, they reinforce a negative racial stereotype.  These folks have never heard of Occam's Razor.  In these stories, gangs seem to have ties to nefarious mustache-twirling comic book villains.  They launch hugely complicated schemes to trap people, instead of the old method of simply hitting someone over the head when they're not looking.

 White people are apparently so afraid of black folks, or street gangs, that they're willing to believe almost anything.  It would be a fascinating social experiment to see how much people would be willing to swallow.  "Yes sir, gangs are posing as real estate agents, and selling homes to people, and then once the home has sold and the deal is closed, they use a copy of the key that they made to break in to the house to rob and rape everyone!"

So if you know the dude who's writing these things, let him know that there's a beautiful woman in the hotel lobby that wants to buy him a drink.  Don't mind her faint eastern European accent.

Christmas Roundup

Howdy folks.

I apologize that this blog has had very little to do with running or dice.  C'est la vie.


For Christmas, the Williams family went north to see Krissi's folks.  We flew out on Christmas Eve, and thankfully Piper was awesome for both legs of the flight.  She flirted with some folks sitting near us, smiling and watching folks intently.  The other Williams clan was also out of town for Christmas, and so we ended up stockpiling the dogs at our house.  We had a few really awesome people agree to check in on them and make sure that they were all fed and taken care of.  Humorously, our friends were also traveling to see family for the holidays, and were within 45 miles of us to see their folks.

Spending Christmas with Krissi's folks was excellent.  We had a great time and everyone was thrilled to get to see Piper.  The traveling was rather tiring.  It went well, with regards to Piper and so forth, but its just taxing.

Piper made out like a bandit, and got enough gifts for three babies.  Folks were very generous.

Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas

Its that time of year, boys and girls. That's right, every year on this month, liberals and godless atheists around the country gear up in their masks and robes and serve a little fresh newborn baby and plot the annual war on Christmas.

Actually I was going to gripe about this whole semantic/ideological tom-foolery that goes on about this silly semi-religious holiday.

I saw someone on facebook join the group "its MERRY CHRISTMAS, not happy holidays!", and I wanted to ask him if he yells at every person who calls it a yam, "Its a SWEET POTATO, not a yam!" Because if I wish you Happy Holidays, its not because I carefully made a plan to deny Christmas. Honestly, I don't care that much - you care way more than I do, Mr. Red Faced Angry About The Holiday dude.

So in part, its just semantics. You say potato, I say potato. But I know that there also more to it than that. I'm one of those godless liberals. So yeah, I don't dig your nativity scene, or your Happy Baby Jesus Day, but I'm not going to be a dick about it to you. I like Christmas just fine. Its a fun time of year when we all pretend that we're much nicer and more generous than we really are. Its our one time of year that we are charitable and kind to our fellow humans. So I'm down with Christmas.

Come down off of your high horse, Holiday Agitators. Its Christmas to you, its Hanukkah to some, and Kwanzaa to others, and Solstice to still others. For me, its just a fun holiday.

For some of us, Christmas is flipping cool mostly because of nostalgia. Its a time that often reminds us of our childhood. It brings back emotions and tastes and feelings and memories of people and times and places and things long since past. I don't celebrate Christmas for Baby Jesus' sake. I don't celebrate it because I believe that Santa needs me to. Really, I just celebrate it because its fun and it reminds me of simpler time - when the most I had to worry about was grade school and the cute girl in class and presents.

So yeah, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

And try to have a good time. Remember the part earlier about being nicer to folks this time of year? Take it to heart. When a godless liberal wishes you Happy Holidays, tell them "Merry Christmas!", or even "Happy Holidays!". Because its a holiday, and quite a few of us are happy about it.

Wheel of Time

I've been rare on here, mostly because I've been busy with baby stuff and other things, but sometimes I just don't feel like writing, y'know?

For no good reason, other than that folks have been chatting about them recently, I've been thinking about the Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan.

Chances are that if you're reading this blog, you're familiar with Jordan. I got my hands on his books years ago, late high school, I think. If you're somehow not familiar with his work, he's a fantasy writer (think Tolkien's Lord of the Rings), who is incredibly long winded. Rather, each of the books in the series are 300,000+ words, and there are currently.. 12 books in the series.

I made it to book 9 before I gave up on the series.

Recently I've considered picking them up again, with the purposeful intent of only reading through to book 5 or 6 or so. Part of my reason for wanting to pick them up again is that the early books are really good. I remember my strong sense of wonderment and fascination with the characters and the world that he'd created.

I swear I think I had some clever insight or something when I started this post. Anyway. I wonder where my copy of book 1 is.

Health Care, analogized as Pizza

sane people: "Since we're hungry lets get some pizza."

the far right: "Oh, no way, I refuse to eat raw fish."

sane people: "There's no raw fish on pizza..."

the far right: "raw fish carries bacteria you know, and can easily kill people."

sane people: "But, there's no raw fish on pizza."

the far right: "If you get pizza, it will fundamentally change everything."

sane people: "pizza doesn't have raw.. wait, what?"

the far right: "Yeah, you ordering that raw fish pizza will fundamentally change this country."

sane people: "Well, there's no raw fish on the pizza, but-"

the far right: "Raw fish kills tons of people."

sane people: "- if you want to suggest something different..?"

the far right: "How about not raw fish pizza? it will destroy america."

sane people: "How will it destroy america?"

the far right: "You must want to kill people, that must be why you're ordering raw fish pizza."

sane people: "Look, I just saw that everyone was hungry and am trying to feed us."

the far right: "Communist."

Running AND Dice!

Two birds, one stone.

So I've gotten my fat and lazy ass back into running again. After more than a year "off", I've managed to get back on the bandwagon and started doing some regular running again. At the moment, I'm working on doing four or more instances of 3 miles around the park in our neighborhood. Its an added bonus that Krissi gets Piper out in the stroller to go around, so I have excellent company.

I've also been keeping my gaming bug going, lately with some Play by Post gaming. I'm running a few games, and playing in a couple as well. Most of the games are full, but if you're interested, email me, or create a login on RPOL.net and rMail me at xjermx.

I'm running a Vampire the Masquerade game, and a pair of Horror games, as well as some Houses of the Blooded. I'm also playing in a Labyrinth Lord game, a couple of "free form" games, and a Vampire the Requiem game.

Gaming related annoyances

Awhile back, I posted a question to the too-clever-for-their-own-good gang over at The Forge. Its the place you go to talk about indie games, or how to play games - and I mean 'how to play' them in the snooty Simpson's comic book guy voice.

I asked a simple question, and gave some context.

All of the answers completely ignored the question, and provided tons of feedback about my context.

Let me analogize: Let's say you post on a home repair website, "Hi, I'm replacing the garage door to my home, and I wonder if you would recommend brand A or brand B?"

And you receive some responses:
"Interesting project. Sounds like your home must be aging some. Have you checked to make sure that your roof is not leaking? A leaking roof can really kill your home, it causes all sorts of problems."

"When I'm replacing a garage door, one of the first things that I always do is mow the lawn. Why? Well because an unkempt lawn looks awful, and just drives me nuts!"

"Instead of replacing your garage door, have you considered tearing down your garage? You could convert it into a patio or a nice garden."

I even posted a followup, to point out that no one was really addressing my question, and that the context was just that - context. To which my replies were like this:

"Well, I don't understand why you are not concerned about your roof. Doesn't sound like wise planning to me!"

Gee, imagine that. Someone on the internet needs punching, AGAIN!


Second gripe:
Nit picking over pregenerated characters. I'm running a game with pregens. Thusfar I've had almost no problems, everyone is fine with playing what I've handed them. Except one dude, who wants to nit pick over it, and then when I'm less than willing to start changing stuff (or letting him play characters that are not available), he's not interested. Good riddance.