Origins, this one's gonna be a real post.

I'm going to start on an unrelated note, because I don't like the idea of things like This being an after thought. I knew a Michael Turner fan I don't talk to anymore, if anyone reading this still does I'm sure she'd like to know.

So, Origins, it was a standard convention, but on a much larger scale. I was there with Firestorm Ink, selling their Card Game. If you know me and the pretty pictures at the top of the game's page entice you ask me to tell you about Suitors, I'm always ready and willing to shill for a friend.

While we were there the town of Columbus was also hosting it's Pride week and maybe it's because I'm from Toronto but it just seemed down right quaint. While I was trying to cross the road the parade was on I managed to walk right across without having to walk back a block or so to where I had crossed once I got to the other side, and the marchers were clothed.

When the exhibitor room was closed we spent most of our time with the great folks from Slugfest and Smirk And Dagger games. Both companies have put out a string of amazing games and are just plain fun to hang around with.

Ohio was fun, but I'm glad to be back, next stop Gen Con.

-James

Origins, I'm too tired to come up with something clever.

I'm home, I'm dead tired and as soon as I have the energy you'll get your update.

I'm sleeping in the office so keep it down out there.

-James

A great tide of filth.

I think I have to start with This, and if I may say, as More Than One Person surely has, "Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits."

This guy here is already closed but if you enjoyed the post I linked in the thread here's some other perspectives on the same gunk that washed over my brain. Because I can't link OC ReMix enough, here's Snake's Revenge, which spent some time looped on my iPod over the weekend. If you've liked the songs from there I've posted before they have torrents for mass downloading, they're funded by donation, let's all try and save them some bandwidth.

Eight days from now, on the first of next month, I'll be returning to WoW, I'm excited and like it or not you are gonna hear about it every once in a while.

This will probably be my last post before I head out of town for Origins on Thursday, I'm not likely going to post while I'm down there but you can count on me to grunt out a post before I collapse when I get home, even if it's like the first one I did for Anime North.

-James

Worlds of Darkness, part three.

Sorry this one is late,

So the man from the bar in the vampire's safe house was sitting on the police officer's dresser. Lord only knows how long he'd been sitting there, but he's there and this startles the waking officer.
"Hi."
"Hello, who are you?"
"A friend, you got anything to eat?"
"There's spray cheese in the fridge."
"Neat."
The strange man scampers off and grabs the cheese, he returns with two cans.
"Who are you and why are you in my home?"
"I'm a friend, I'm here to help."
"What's your name?"
"I haven't thought about it in a while..."
It kind of degenerated from there as I put some scattered thought into a name. I didn't come up with a very good one, so I'm gonna glaze over that part. The man drops, with little other information, that a kindergarten class will be endangered by the antics of someone or something, tells him where to meet people who can help him, the facts about the residents of the safe house, confirms what the officer already knows about the werewolves and with that runs out the door and vanishes.

The officer got out of bed and got ready for work. He showered, shaved, got in the car and headed for the doughnut shop. The kid behind the counter gave him attitude, as usual, and then three coffees and 2 doughnuts. He took them to his car and drove to work. He got there and was assigned to highway patrol. He drove a few kilometers away and hid behind a sign. In an attempt to gather his thoughts on the last night he read the bible instead of watching the road.

The wolves got another call from their pack leader. "I've made and recieved some unpleasant calls tonight, but I may have found you some back up." They are given a time and an address, right across from the gas station. They split up and made their way across the woods to different sides of town. The female found the cop, the male found breakfast. He came out of the woods and asked, "Hey, is that steak?"
The mage replied "Yes it is."
"How much?"
"How much you got?"
So the mage charged the wolf for the steak and then mixed himself a drink.
"You bastard. How much?"

The female wolf switched back to her human form beside the cop car. The officer is surprised by the woman who threw a car door at him appearing, naked, beside his car while he is on duty. "Can I help you?"
"I want to talk."
"Okay."
"I'm sorry I threw a door at you."
"Thank you... I think."
They awkwardly made peace and agreed to both go to find this help at the vampire's safe house that night.

The sun set and the vampires woke up. I can't remember who, but someone anwsered the phone, the Prince asked if the door had been fixed, they responded in the positive. The Prince said "Good, great, you've got some company coming tonight, remember, no fucking killing. These are friendlies."

---------------

I'm calling it here for today. I'm gonna be going down to Origins next Thursday morning and as such I'm not sure when posting will resume, I'm going to try and post while I'm down there but don't hold your breath. When I get back I'm gonna reclaim my Friday post for a week or two and write about something besides WoD.

-James

Edited to include an link for Origins.

COMICS!!!!

Let's start with Invincible #50! Every once in a while this book heavily shakes up it's status quo, this is such an issue. The Guardians Of the Globe, Invincible's team, seems to be splitting in two, his ties to the government have been severed, and hey, starting next issue, sidekick!

Teen Titans: Year One #5 of 6, Wait, Speedy's a dick? Imagine that, I never would have guessed. Aqualad and Kid Flash provide some excellent comic relief.

X-Factor #32, The fall out from Arcade's attack on the remains of Mutant Town. Jamie appears to be hallucinating Layla, who's either dead or trapped in an alternate future. The issue ends with the team moving states and and a very pregnant Siryn.

Bomb Queen V #2 of 6. This book is sooooo fucked up, I love it, you might not.

Nightwing #145, Nightwing and Talia continue to play cat and mouse, while Talia grows an army, and Ra's Al Ghul escapes from Arkham.

That's all you get, now, feet off the desk, and get out.

-James

A great tide of filth.

I've got to start With This.

I just finally finished The Difference Engine this week. It's a fine little example of Steampunk as a genre. I can't goober about it enough, READ!

We've lost Stan Winston, that's the picture they pick? CBC, you fail at obituaries. Here, These should be better. I hope This lady fucking hangs.

Here's a random xkcd to amuse you since this tide feels a little short.

-James

Worlds of Darkness, part two.

I'm getting really bad about posting these late, I'm sorry.

So, where were we, right, after the shoot out. So, the Daeva pulls up in his stolen car just as the Mekhet and Ventrue skulk off to investigate the disappearances(their player's weren't there). The Daeva awes the Gangrel, takes the building keys, and heads upstairs. When he gets there he finds the direct line back to the Prince in the city, that the others had found off the hook and replaced on it's cradle, ringing off the hook.

He picks it up and is lightly berated by the prince, who reminds(this was a new player, so more like informs.) him of the groups orders. Play nice with the wolves' and mage's representatives, and do not kill.

The wolves were bickering their way through the woods, moving towards their destination and discussing who was at fault over the car door. They got to the meeting point and found that it had been weeks since anyone else had been to it. They call up their pack leader and begin to convey this information to them, he asks how everything is going, "Not so well." He asks what that means, "Nothing, just some trouble." What kind of trouble, he wants to know, "Nothing we can't..." the phone is snatched out of the werewolf's hand. "Don't worry I'll take this." It's the man from the vampire's safe house. Over the course of a few seconds he informs the pack leader about the drag race, the chase, the shooting, and the car door. "Okay, glad I could help, he wants to talk to you." and with that he hands to phone back and runs off. The wolves give chase but he's long gone.

The police officer is being debriefed back at the station house. Everything checks out on his end, there's something strange on his dashboard cam, he's hurt, and there's still a car door embedded in the side of his cruiser. From the looks of things he did a textbook job and got injured for it. He's told to go home and rest, then report tomorrow for duty. He's given a drive because he's hurt and winds up playing along in some sort of benign hazing ritual.

The werewolves stalk around the woods to try and find the officer, and maybe retrieve the dashboard cam's tape. They find trees and the gas station, then insist they should be better at tracking someone they interacted with, I pointed out that combat, in a gas station, is hardly the best place to pick up a scent other than gasoline.

The vampire's finished up their searches and prepared to turn in for the day, they had a lock smith coming during the day to do something about the front door. Well before his alarm was going to go off the police officer was woken by the man from the bar, who was sitting on his dresser, but I'm running a little long, I'll pick it up from here next week.

--------------------------

Tomorrow, Queens Park, North side, 11am
www.stopc51.com

-James

COMICS!!!!

I know, I picked it up late, but, first up, Giant Sized Astonishing X-Men #1, holy crap! Holy crap! I've been waiting for this to come out for a while, but that's because I have no patience. I liked it, it's what an annual should be. I recommend it if X-Men books are what you like.

Uncanny X-Men #498, the X-Hippies amuse me, I'd like some more.

Blue Beetle #27, Blue Beetle fighting conjured devils.

Titans #3, ironically I like to comment on the chemistry these characters have had, so right up until the last panel this issue makes me look like an ass. I loved it, I'm waiting for the next one.

Teen Titans #59, the odd New Gods names on the villains in this issue left me scratching my head. No, seriously, what the fuck was that? Clock King, the Terror Titans, those I can get, they fit the mold, but, what the fuck? Since a majority of the issue's focus on the battle with the Clock King and his Titans I liked it.

That's all I got for you, I'm locking up for the night.

-James

A late tide of filth.

Sorry, between my weekend and my exhausting day at work I came in and crashed. Here's your tide.

Jonathan Coulton's songs have been making me smile all week. His Thing a Week blog is still archived on his site and is a great source of amusement. New Neurotically Yours at Illwillpress. I was reading through Multiple Warheads #1 when I finally got online and stopped to update here, I like it enough I'm not waiting until Wednesday to tell you to read it.

From Whitechapel, where I spend a good deal of my misbegotten time, we have a Neat Bust, This decision is every gamers dream come true, take that Jack, and finally, I'm glad I'm not the only person excited for This.

That's all I got, I spent my weekend Killing Zombies, how about you?

-James

Bringing nerds and goths together since 1991.

After a long break from running games I have found myself running a World Of Darkness game, not just one of it's sub-games, a cross world game, because apparently I'm a masochist. My group consists of 4 Vampires, one human, one Mage, and a mated pair of Werewolves. The human is playing an OPP officer, the mage a university professor, the werewolves are drag-racing ner-do-wells, and the vampires are a Gangrel witch, a Ventrue information broker, a Mekhet assassin, and finally a Daeva man of mystery.

The first session started with the troops being gathered.
The mage found a rotary phone ringing at the foot of his bed. The voice on the phone told him his instructions would be waiting in his car. He showered, ate, and loaded his car with camping equipment, booze, smokes, and a full cooler. His instructions were to head north to a planned suburb that the local supernatural "community" was using as an experiment in non-aggression. Two weeks earlier all communication to the mage's council from the suburb had ceased. He was to investigate, determine the cause and report back before acting.

The werewolves got a similar briefing but in person instead of with a magic phone and a pad of documents. They loaded into their awesome sports car and headed north. The police officer attempted to stop them for speeding on their way into town, they booked it up the highway and lost him when he decided not to push his squadcar until it rattled apart. When they got to town they went to the local bar and grill and got smashed and stuffed them selves with steak. The officer's next target was a rusted out hunk of jeep driven by our mage. First he ticketed him for speeding, then he started writing him a ticket for operating an unsafe vehicle, since his rear bumper was held on with duct tape. They argued about the strength of the tape and in an attempt to prove his point the officer kicked the bumper, the tape held. He tore up the ticket and asked the mage to have the bumper properly repaired and to stay bellow the speed limit. When he got into town he hit the local bar and grill and proceeded to get smashed, I began to sense a pattern.

The vampires, waking after dark, were all summoned to the Prince's court, where they were berated and given almost identical orders to the other groups, they were to report to the small town's local vampire safe-house, owned by the Prince and operated by a group of four vampires who had ceased to report in on schedule. They were given a car to use and strict orders about the condition it was to be returned in.

The vampires made their trip to town at the speed limit. When they pulled up to the five story safe house they found the steel front doors kicked in and a man in a leather jacket and a fedora sitting at the bar idly playing with a ring of keys.
"you're late." He blurted, jumping off his stool. The Ventrue pipped in with "Did the Prince send you too?" The man asked "The who?" Every other player groaned, fifteen minutes into the game and we have our first breach of the Masquerade, the system of deceit that protects vampires from public exposure. While the Ventrue player picked up on his little slip the man asked with a snicker "Did he send you with a copy of Purple Rain?", and it was my turn to make the table groan.

After much back and forth the vampire deduced that this man knew more than he was letting on, that he had the only keys to the upstairs of the safe house, and that he was bored of talking to them, since he wanted to get outside to the drag races. The cop and werewolves both perked up on that note. The Mekhet physically moved the Ventrue, allowing the man to leave. In return he left them the keys.

The race started up and it was the wolves in their sports car against a trio of Honda PoSs. The race started and a police car pulled into the path of the speeding cars. The cars all veered around him and kept right on booking it. The mage stumbled drunk down the street, following the action. The cop turned on his siren now, and the Honda drivers, already panicked, were all spun out or stopped while the officer continued chasing the sports car.

The chase went through a gas station, one of the vampires watching from the parking lot of their safe house, across the street. Skidding out the male werewolf gets out of the car when the officer shouts at him to stay put and keep his hands visible. The wolf tries to intimidate the officer, who only gets sterner in his instance that the large man surrender. When the man continues to threaten the officer he opens fire in self defense, I asked him "in the middle of a gas station?" he said "yes". The shot missed, the wolf started backing up but his mate hung out the car window and opened fire on the officer, who took cover behind his car door. Then the wolf failed her rage check and transformed. She was now wearing the car door she was hanging out of like a belt, she took it off and flung it at the cop, embedding it in his car and injuring him.

The officer radioed for backup, and the mage stumbled closer, asking "what the hell is that?" his eyes refusing to focus. The man from the bar dropped his fedora onto the mage's head and told him, "That, is a werewolf." and then promptly vanished. It took the drunk mage a second to notice it but when the man vanished so did his two packs of smokes. "Son of a bitch!"

The male wolf grabbed his now calming mate and they made for the woods, bickering about the damage to the car. As they got out of town and into the woods every cop for several jurisdictions came flying towards the gas station. The mage stumbled up to one of them and yelled, "Hey, that bastard stole my smokes!" and got arrested on a drunk and disorderly.

The vampires split up and began their investigation, the Daeva finally pulling up in his own car, saying nothing, and Aweing the Gangrel, who had stayed since they only have the one set of keys and the front doors don't close, but that was the start of the second session, and a story for another week.

COMICS!!!!

Here it is, since my comic guy didn't show up all I have for you this week is Raven #4 of 5;
Marv Wolfman, the series writer is also the character's creator and I'm really enjoying what he's doing with the growth that other writers have added to Raven over the nearly three decades since she first appeared. Every time he comes back to one of the characters from his run on The New Teen Titans he does something interesting with them, his run on Nightwing was some of the best treatment the character had seen since Chuck Dixon started his run in 1996, which was the first time a character from a team I liked had a solo series that looked interesting.

Read Raven!

-James

A great tide of filth.

...And now, your tide;

I was doing some idle wandering around at Grinding.be and came across This neat little article, and This link to an article on Augmented Reality. Also, I found This and am suddenly seeing the appeal of having plants around the apartment.

Here's a good one for all of you that don't trust Facebook to wave around as a flag when people naysay your fears. Just remember, the internet only knows what we choose to tell it. Go to www.ocremix.org and pick a song off of the Russian ReMix Roulette, down near the bottom of the page. While I can't promise you'll find something you like out of those six songs, I can promise that the site will have something you like if you root around long enough.

Here's Some Images For a Friend who's never on msn, you all can enjoy them too. I don't know what possessed the creator of This, but I want one!

I came across This at the last moment and it galled the living fuck out of me.

-James