-James
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
It's Friday, I didn't sleep, here's some stuff that leaked out of my brain.
I can't find a way to do the Sunday/Monday Twitter post in a way I'm happy with. Until I can I'm not gonna do it again. It's an ugly block of text this way and that's crap.
Recently the state of tension between myself and my Compliance Automaton reached a peak. Unable to continue my work under these circumstances I decided to tackle the problem at hand. I proposed a truce, in the name of expansion. Young Commie cautiously accepted and we began work on the Dimension Gate. A glorious arc of glass and steel, the gate stood a foot taller then my towering, robotic charge.
When we first started it the was a massive discharge of energy. Several technicians were killed. I seem to go through a lot of them. A group of soldiers came through a few minutes after the gate had opened. The technicians checking the stability of the gate were captured by the soldiers and I called for another group of replacements. With them came a detatchment of my Destroyer Automatons. Recovering the captured men would cost less then training new ones later.
The Destroyers, Commie, and myself passed through the gate and on to an alien world. The soldiers standing around the gate on the other world fell quickly to the hail of laser fire my automatons unleashed. I radioed back for a larger group of automatons and pressed on into the enemy base. We must have killed half the base before we found the brig
Destroying several walls, we freed the captured technicians. The second group of automatons arrived as we returned to the gate. I told Commie then that this world was his to rule. That a whole army was coming to reinforce him in his conquest.
Leaving him there I returned to my own world. Over the next hour his army marched through the gate. The gate was sealed behind the last robot. We have contact, sometimes. From what I'm told Commie has taken the capital and that he is now an emperor. I'll suppose I shall have to pick a new name for him. He's not my young robot anymore.
I'm off at Anime North this weekend, there may be posting while I'm there, there may not. I'm sure I won't shut up on Twitter, as usual.
-James
Recently the state of tension between myself and my Compliance Automaton reached a peak. Unable to continue my work under these circumstances I decided to tackle the problem at hand. I proposed a truce, in the name of expansion. Young Commie cautiously accepted and we began work on the Dimension Gate. A glorious arc of glass and steel, the gate stood a foot taller then my towering, robotic charge.
When we first started it the was a massive discharge of energy. Several technicians were killed. I seem to go through a lot of them. A group of soldiers came through a few minutes after the gate had opened. The technicians checking the stability of the gate were captured by the soldiers and I called for another group of replacements. With them came a detatchment of my Destroyer Automatons. Recovering the captured men would cost less then training new ones later.
The Destroyers, Commie, and myself passed through the gate and on to an alien world. The soldiers standing around the gate on the other world fell quickly to the hail of laser fire my automatons unleashed. I radioed back for a larger group of automatons and pressed on into the enemy base. We must have killed half the base before we found the brig
Destroying several walls, we freed the captured technicians. The second group of automatons arrived as we returned to the gate. I told Commie then that this world was his to rule. That a whole army was coming to reinforce him in his conquest.
Leaving him there I returned to my own world. Over the next hour his army marched through the gate. The gate was sealed behind the last robot. We have contact, sometimes. From what I'm told Commie has taken the capital and that he is now an emperor. I'll suppose I shall have to pick a new name for him. He's not my young robot anymore.
I'm off at Anime North this weekend, there may be posting while I'm there, there may not. I'm sure I won't shut up on Twitter, as usual.
-James
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The mission that would not die.
My game group was playing Star Wars. Since it was going to be an RPGA game we had to use the newest edition, which used a system that would later be released as D&D 4th edition, and we didn't particularly like it. But complaints aside, Living Force it was. I joined the first game late and hadn't rolled a character. I took over one of the GM's premade characters and joined the game.
Around the table we had two Humans, one of them a force adept the other a scoundrel, a Rodian, a scout, and a droid. The character I took over was describeded to me as being the kind of man who "sold" your grandmother a "bible". We were on our way to a meeting in a quite part of the space station. We entered the cargo bay and began talking to a droid. A green person who should have kept quiet said something he shouldn't have. There was a heated exchange of words and finally the robot we were meeting had enough. He yelled and the walls to our left and right began to dissolve with a barrage of red bolts. We dove for cover. We knew the room was full of illegal weapons, we were there to smuggle some away honestly, so we knew better then to be blowing things up. The first thing I did was shoot the fucking droid.
Turns out there were ten of them. We shot four, the force adept pushed a crate of blasters over on two. One of them dropped a grenade and took care of the rest.
We were glad to all be alive and relatively unharmed. The GM was going easy on us, but we were fucked and we knew it. We shot our contact over some harsh words. We killed ten of our employer's men. We needed to get the hell out of there. We were almost out, then the Rodian decided to leave his grenade belt in the air lock.
The first explosion ruptured the station's hull and shook our ship. The second explosion was the station begining to depressurize. We blew a quarter of it up. The session ended there. We all left about an hour later. Still laughing.
The GM had a grim look on his face the next week.
He said he'd submitted his report and was told we had to replay the session and complete it closer to the expected end. He said he was told we were "Doing it wrong." . All we had to do was not blow things up. This was easier said then done. If you've read my Shadowrun post you'll remember that blowing things up is sort of how we solve a problem, and we all agreed we had a problem.
The game started as before. We non-violently made our way to the spaceport, got in our ship, and flew to the space station in orbit. This time we stopped outside the cargo bay and readied our weapons. The force adept kicked in the door. I pelted one wall with grenades, the Rodian got the other. The driods shot at each other. Most of the men behind the walls had been killed in the explosion. In a few rounds the rest of them were dead. We gathered up a ridiculous amount of explosives from the crates in the room. Left a large quantity in the room and left the rest across the half of the station between us and our ship. A quick damage calculation later and we were told we had destroyed 70% of the station this time.
The next week our GM looked nervous. "Do it again." We didn't even pretend we were playing nice this time. We didn't go to our ship. We went to a nearby Imperial(Republic?) garrison and stole a ship. I had just talked the Star Destroyer into letting us dock when the GM called the game. It had only run this long because he thought we'd never manage to steal the thing. 70% was a nice number, but we all agreed. We could destroy the whole thing if we hit it with that star destroyer we behaved as we passed into orbit the last two times.
The GM was ready for this. He had another game ready. I think he just wanted to see if we would keep trying to blow the station up. As far as I know the RPGA thinks we completed the mission, I couldn't tell you. The moral of the story is... Hmmm. If you have a problem we can blow it up. Not really a moral, but I'm sticking with it.
-James
Around the table we had two Humans, one of them a force adept the other a scoundrel, a Rodian, a scout, and a droid. The character I took over was describeded to me as being the kind of man who "sold" your grandmother a "bible". We were on our way to a meeting in a quite part of the space station. We entered the cargo bay and began talking to a droid. A green person who should have kept quiet said something he shouldn't have. There was a heated exchange of words and finally the robot we were meeting had enough. He yelled and the walls to our left and right began to dissolve with a barrage of red bolts. We dove for cover. We knew the room was full of illegal weapons, we were there to smuggle some away honestly, so we knew better then to be blowing things up. The first thing I did was shoot the fucking droid.
Turns out there were ten of them. We shot four, the force adept pushed a crate of blasters over on two. One of them dropped a grenade and took care of the rest.
We were glad to all be alive and relatively unharmed. The GM was going easy on us, but we were fucked and we knew it. We shot our contact over some harsh words. We killed ten of our employer's men. We needed to get the hell out of there. We were almost out, then the Rodian decided to leave his grenade belt in the air lock.
The first explosion ruptured the station's hull and shook our ship. The second explosion was the station begining to depressurize. We blew a quarter of it up. The session ended there. We all left about an hour later. Still laughing.
The GM had a grim look on his face the next week.
He said he'd submitted his report and was told we had to replay the session and complete it closer to the expected end. He said he was told we were "Doing it wrong." . All we had to do was not blow things up. This was easier said then done. If you've read my Shadowrun post you'll remember that blowing things up is sort of how we solve a problem, and we all agreed we had a problem.
The game started as before. We non-violently made our way to the spaceport, got in our ship, and flew to the space station in orbit. This time we stopped outside the cargo bay and readied our weapons. The force adept kicked in the door. I pelted one wall with grenades, the Rodian got the other. The driods shot at each other. Most of the men behind the walls had been killed in the explosion. In a few rounds the rest of them were dead. We gathered up a ridiculous amount of explosives from the crates in the room. Left a large quantity in the room and left the rest across the half of the station between us and our ship. A quick damage calculation later and we were told we had destroyed 70% of the station this time.
The next week our GM looked nervous. "Do it again." We didn't even pretend we were playing nice this time. We didn't go to our ship. We went to a nearby Imperial(Republic?) garrison and stole a ship. I had just talked the Star Destroyer into letting us dock when the GM called the game. It had only run this long because he thought we'd never manage to steal the thing. 70% was a nice number, but we all agreed. We could destroy the whole thing if we hit it with that star destroyer we behaved as we passed into orbit the last two times.
The GM was ready for this. He had another game ready. I think he just wanted to see if we would keep trying to blow the station up. As far as I know the RPGA thinks we completed the mission, I couldn't tell you. The moral of the story is... Hmmm. If you have a problem we can blow it up. Not really a moral, but I'm sticking with it.
-James
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
I remembered something that breaks my heart last night.
I'm not really sure why, but last night when I couldn't sleep I caught myself thinking about my dog from when I was a kid. Not my first dog, my second one. My mother had taken me to the shelter to look at dogs and as soon as I saw him I knew that was the dog for us. Eight year-olds know these things So we paid the license fees, okay mom did, and filled out the paperwork and Jake was ours. When we got home my brother decided he was scary. I snickered a little bit and with that evil smile only a child can smile I said two words to Jake. "Get him." I couldn't tell you if my brother remembers what happened, but as soon as I said it Jake was across the room and he bit my brother once, right on the ass.
My mom couldn't be mad at the dog. I'd told him to do it, all he did was listen. That was Jake, always eager to do what we asked.
We had him for eleven years. When I was nineteen Jake got very sick. He had trouble getting up and sometimes he would sneeze blood. One day, as I walked in the door from work my mom and brother told me it was time.
Jake was just too sick, it had been months coming. We needed to put him down. My brother and I sat in the back of the car with him on the short ride to the vet. He sneezed the whole ride. The vet explained to us exactly what was going to happen. After we got Jake up on the table he started trying to stand. My brother and step-father helped keep him laying down as I sat in the corner, blank-faced and watching.
I'd be lying if I tell you I can remember anything about the next twenty minutes other then that when my family all shuffled back to the car I said I'd prefer to walk. It was only about three minutes from home anyway.
I didn't head home, I walked about a block in the other direction and sat down in a patch of grass by the roadside. While I was walking I phoned my best friend. Not thinking about the time I interrupted his family dinner. I apologized as well as I could and told him I'd talk to him later. That was when I found the patch of grass.
I couldn't have been sitting longer then two minutes when it started to rain. What else could I do? I laughed. I laughed until I cried. I'm not really sure how long it was, but my friend called back. I pulled myself together and answered the phone. He asked what was wrong. "We just put Jake down. I'm still covered with the blood he sneezed up." Then I cried some more. He asked where I was and I told him.
When he pulled up I told him I'd walk home, so I didn't soak his seat of his car with my wet clothes. He was having none of that. He told me to get in
Five years later and thinking about that day still breaks my heart a little. The same way sixteen years later it still makes me smile thinking about Jake darting across the room to bite my brother on the ass to impress me.
-James
EDITED: To add the final two sentances and signature, which were cut off when the post was e-mailed.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Fuck me, I disappeared again...
I don't even really have a good excuse. If I wanted to be really honest with myself I might point out that all this trouble really started when my laptop went on life support. Don't think I haven't been posting because I don't like doing it, or that I'd rather be doing something else.
So, here's the plan. The schedule is being thrown out. No more of this "I'll get back to posting on it, someday." and once a week, probably Sunday or Monday since I'm off work, I'm gonna totally rip off Jhonen Vasquez and post up that weeks Twitter posts. Since I tweet like a mad man that should be a decent sized post once a week. The twitter sidebar isn't going away, so my last five tweets will still be up there all the damn time. Con season starts soon too, Anime North is at the end of the month, so that should help me breath life back into my blogging.
Be well readers, all four of you.
-James
So, here's the plan. The schedule is being thrown out. No more of this "I'll get back to posting on it, someday." and once a week, probably Sunday or Monday since I'm off work, I'm gonna totally rip off Jhonen Vasquez and post up that weeks Twitter posts. Since I tweet like a mad man that should be a decent sized post once a week. The twitter sidebar isn't going away, so my last five tweets will still be up there all the damn time. Con season starts soon too, Anime North is at the end of the month, so that should help me breath life back into my blogging.
Be well readers, all four of you.
-James
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