Life in the ER
Yesterday morning, I woke up at about 5:20 am with a stabbing pain in my stomach. I got up, got a drink of water and used the bathroom and tried lying back down. The pain would not go away and got worse and worse until it felt like there was a knife in my stomach. Carla woke up and we went together to the Hospital Emergency Room. Then, right before we arrived at the hospital, the pain went away.

We were there for hours as the hospital took blood samples, urine samples and a cat scan. Several possibilities were mentioned to me by the doctors and nurses. After they looked at the cat scan, I waited another hour in the room before the doctor came and let me know. A rather large kidney stone is sitting in my bladder. It still needs to pass.

While spending several hours in the ER room, I'd wished I had something to read. The only thing in the room was a copy of the Smithsonian with a painting by Gaughin or someone that looked a lot like Klinger from M.A.S.H..

On the way home, I kept thinking "God, I never want to go through that again" and then remembering that I would be.

So, I have a prescription for painkillers and I'm drinking a lot of fluids....and waiting.

Something I realized while in the ER. You might be getting old if you're required to talk about your bladder movements.

Something else I've realized from the experience. If you have a high-pain threshold, don't say that you do to someone. It's just asking for trouble. Carla and I were talking about her recent experience with getting her wisom teeth out the night before. When I had mine out, I felt great the next day. Her, and several of our friends had horrible experiences. I made the mistake of saying " well, I have a pretty high pain threshold." It was pushed to the limits yesterday. I'd say that was as painful if not more painful than recovering from my hernia surgery years ago.

The worst part was not knowing what was causing the pain, though. Knowing, at least I can know if it's some seruious threat to my life. It isn't. It's just painful as hell.

I feel fine right now, although I have to pee again. Tomorrow, I'll be on a long car trip with friends. I hope they're ready to make a lot of pit stops.

Battle Cry!
(via Lintra)

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Striding through the candy store, attacking with gilded boxing gloves, cometh Nuadha! And he gives a vengeful scream: "I'm going to pulverize you until you scream like a banshee!!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

This Modern World
This week's This Modern World takes a fair and balanced look at the successes of the Bush Administration. (Note- the comic is not connected to or endorsed by Fox News, so don't get confused with this fair and balanced stuff.)

Monday Mashup 6: Huckleberry Finn
This week's Monday Mashup is Huckleberry Finn:

I will mix it with....GURPS: Riverworld.

((Warning: Minor spoilers of Philip Jose Famer's Riverworld series lie ahead....particularly, spoilers of To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first book. You've been warned.))

For those of you not familiar with the series, Riverworld was a series of books by Philip Jose Farmer about a world where everyone who ever lived and died on Earth wakes up on the banks of a great river that never seems to end. Someone provides for them through great pillars that provide them with meals and equipment 3 times a day and they start rebuilding their societies. Ancient Roman civilizations exist just a little bit down the river from New Yorkers.

It's a natural. There's already a Mark Twain in the world travelling down the river in a big steamboat.

Waking on the shore of the river, our characters (the PCs) find themselves in an area of the world populated by a majority of whites from early 19th century America and a minority of 14th century Africans. After some fighting, the proud Africans were enslaved. Made to labour and give half of their lunch pail's contents to their owners, the area slowly starts looking like the Southern US of Huckleberry Finn.

One day the PCs a mix of younger Riverworlders of the area hear of a story. There is a great riverboat going down the river looking for the end of the river. Inspired by this story, the PCs, perhaps pushed a little by an NPC, build a raft and escape down the river. The PCs are a mix of a few rebellious youths that befriended a few blacks and believe that the slavery is wrong and a few escaped slaves. It will take a while to get far enough down the river to an area they can truly be free, but even then will they settle down or continue down the river meeting the different cultures of the Riverworld.

PCs who die will be replaced by new PCs interested in travelling down the river with the existing PCs. Although Riverworlders never truly die, they are most likely to wake up somewhere along the river so far away that the PC group would never find them.

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer RPG: A Review
Between last night and this morning, I've read most of the book and here are a few thoughts.

I had played it last year at U-Con and was prety impressed with it at the time. After reading the book, I am even more impressed. I'm a tinkerer. When I read a rules system, I usually immediately see things that need changed. Amazingly there is nothing I see that I need to change and will be running the game exactly as it is in the book, something I haven't done....since.....I can't remember the last time. I guess it was probably Cyberpunk 2020 back in 1993.

Axctually this game has a few things in common with R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk system. It uses 1d10 added to an attribute and a skill to determine success. It's a simple system that is easy to teach or learn.

Where it shines is that, unlike Cyberpunk or most simple systems, the game offers a lot of flexibility and a highly cinematic combat system. The system is called the Unisystem. It is also used in the zombie-survival roleplaying game All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Angel and a few other RPGs from Eden studios. (including an upcoming Evil Dead RPG! Dead by dawn! Dead by dawn! errr..... I digress....) Character creation reminds me a lot of GURPS, but it is faster and easier to use. Like GURPS, there are tons of options. Your character buys advantages and disadvantages (this time called Qualities and Drawbacks), attributes and skills and there are plenty of Qualities and Drawbacks to choose from. Unlike GURPS, Buffy character creation takes little time since there are less skills to choose from (all skills having been distilled to their basic forms) and no mathematical equations.

The highlight of the system is their Drama Point system, I think. Some of you may know that I've developed for The Dreaming City where players get Drama Points to allow them to do really cool things. Well, I've seen similiar systems in several games. Masterbook had a great system that used cards. However, I think this system has one of the most balanced I've seen and has the excellent idea of giving more Drama Points to the lower powered "scoobies" (like Xander).

I'm looking forward to running this game.

A fitting quiz
(via MacGeek)

Season Four - Many people don't like you because
you're dating the wrong guy, but I'll admit to
finding you my favorite. You're still a
college kid, but you're smarter than ever, and
your episodes are turning out better and
better, showing an edge that we didn't know you
had. Your best episode is
"Restless," a perfect cap to the
Scooby dynamic.


Which Season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Yesterday, the "World of Insufficient Light" game ended prematurely. The game had problems and everyone's enthusiasm about the game was pretty low. This was not due to any particular person or situation but a mixture of problems. Rather than continue a so-so game I spoke to the group (that was there) and it was decided to end the game and try something new.

We spoke of a few options. We talked about starting a straight Vampire:The Masqerade game. We talked about Nobilis. In the end, we decided that Buffy: The Vampire Slayer was the best option. It fits my GM style and the whole group was pretty excited about the idea.

Learning from the mistakes I made in the last two campaigns I ran (Changeling and the WoIL game), we started it right this time. We started by talking, as a group (at least the players who were there) about what we wanted in the game and how our characters should interact. I've said here before that one of the most important parts of GMing is listening to your players, but I've never asked before starting planning a game, "what do you guys want?" It works. I'm excited about the game and they are.

The game will be set in Ann Arbor. This is the first time I've set a game in a city that everyone in the game is already familiar with. It should be interested.

So, after a character creation session we have (no character names yet, just concepts):

me- Director (aka GM)
Carla- The Slayer. A little more Faith than Buffy. A freshman at the University of Michigan.
John- The Watcher. A teacher of Ancient History at Uof M and an Archeologist, as well as being a vampire-hunter in his own right.
Jarrod- The geeky beginning warlock. Basically Andrew from Sunnydale...without the supervillain thing. A UofM freshman.
Matthew- The beginning witch. With skills that differ from "Andrew" above, she's a witch with an attitude. A UofM freshman.
Mark- The super-science geek. A UofM Freshman.
Kris- The "Rogue Demonhunter." Kris is not sure yet of the details, but she is fairly certain she wants to be some sort of demonhunter.

Another one
This one from MacGeek....


Fight Club!


What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
brought to you by Quizilla

Just a sweet transvestite....

Damn. I wanted Raistlin...or Sephiroth. I guess I'm just not evil enough. On the other hand, I'm much prettier....


You are Dr. Frank from Rocky Horror Picture Show.
You are the epitome of mad science. And a damn hot
sweet transvestite.
Choose your henchmen carefully.


Which Cool Evil Guy Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
(Via Arref)

...and yet another quiz....

	*samurai* a master of the mystical katana noble; honorable; deadly
[Final Fantasy Tactics Job Class]

(Via Spiral Moon and Palladia Prime)

Monday Mashup 5: The Fantastic Four

I was tempted to write for last week's Monday Mashup when the topic was Neuromancer, but never got around to it. However, I can't resiste this week's theme: Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's Fantastic Four.

For those of you who have not seen this, the Monday Mashup's object is to take a given them and mix it with a given roleplaying game or setting.

Ginger has already done my first thought, a Fantastic Four/fantasy crossover. I could give my version, but how fun would that be?

Instead, I give you the Jackie Chan Adventures game starring the Fantastic Five. This could be run using Hero 5th edition, GURPS, Masterbook or several other systems.

Origin: Reed Richards was and is an archeologist, a friend and sometimes co-worker of Jackie. With his amazing luck at discovering rare finds on digs, Jackie would jokingly call him "Mr. Fantastic." While Reed was working at a site in China, his girlfiend Sue and her little brother Johnny (an annoying boy about 10 years old) came to visit him on-site and spend some vacation time visiting China. While they were on the site, they found a secret chamber deep in the ground. With the help of two of his assistants, another Archologist named Jennifer Walters and a laborer named Ben, Reed was able to open the chamber and the group went inside wear they discovered 5 ancient vases. The ground trembled and the energies burst forth from the vases changing the lives of Reed and his friends forever.

Style: The game would be a hong kong-style action series with each of the four gaining abilities based on the Chinese zodiac: water, fire, earth, metal and wood. They would be harrassed by shadow-ninjas, demons and, of course, an ex-Romani, power-hungry overlord named Victor who all want the power of the elements.

One more thing.....

Characters: I'm not sure what powers I'd give Reed and Sue, but little Johnny would have pyromantic abilities and Ben would be really strong. As for the fifth fantastic person (to round out the Chinese elements), Jenny would probably be the one for the power of wood as I'm certain she'd look good in green.

The World of Connemara- The Decision to DM
Carla and I have been wanting to try D&D 3rd edition for a while now and with all the recent Lord of the Rings hype and recent fantasy novels I've read (or re-read), I've really had the urge to run a traditional fantasy epic. Also, I'd like to try the D20 system as I've been thinking that my Dreaming City setting would work really well as a D20 Modern setting. Besides, I've been missing the more "game" elements in "roleplaying games." Ever since Carla and I started playing Amber, I've been running games that have tried to focus more on the roleplaying elements and have left out many of the game elements of RPGs. Sometimes, it is fun to roll a d20. Even using dice with White Wolf's games, they tend to me more about the character interaction than the gaming elements of RPGs and I think the games have lost something. I think that in a well-balanced game the roleplaying elements should be balanced by the gaming elements. (By gaming elements, I refer to the strategic aspects of combat, problem solving and dice rolling.) I think the Champions group I play in is probably the best I've ever seen at mixing the roleplaying and gaming aspects of roleplaying games. While we use what is possibly the "crunchiest" system around, Champions, and combat is very strategic with lots of dicerolling and decisions to be made, the game also has some excellent roleplayers who work to bring their characters to life.

I bought the D&D3e Players Guide back when it came out even though I had never really liked AD&D or Palladium Fantasy (a system that almost clones the D&D mechanics that I broke my gaming teeth on and GMed for a while). I was curious to see the chages they were making as it sounded like they were making the exact changes that I had always said I would make to AD&D. They had gotten rid of the hideous THAC0 system and replaced skills with a system that uses a d20 much like combat. I bought it and was impressed, but not enough to play. They still had the level-based advancement that always made me cringe and the game still didn't allow for the more creative character concepts a player may come up with like in point based games such as GURPS or Hero System.

Plot
The biggest reason I decided to go ahead and DM a D&D game is that I have this great plot idea. I'd like to run. It has elements of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, Record of Lodoss War, Robert Jordan's Eye of the World, Weis & Hickman's Dragonlance Saga and, of course, Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series. (Almost all of my games have had some influence from Michael Moorcock.) It's an epic quest in the classic fantasy mold and I can only think of two possible systems to run it in: Hero 5th edition and Dungeons and Dragons. D&D won because of it's relative simplicity and the before-mentioned possibilty of using the same system for the Dreaming City.

It starts like many of the classic fantasy series start, with the main characters living a simple life in a rural village. I'm not sure why so many fantasy stories fall into this mold, but it fits naturally for for my story as well.

Setting
The plot I have in mind needed to be based in the history of the world, so I have started planning the setting and the worlds history, mythology, etc. While I can not share the plot I have planned with everyone on my blog, I'll probably be sharing the setting here. I had a few pages of notes and a lot of stuff planned in my head for the world, but today the world finally received it's name: Connemara. In the "old tongue" of Connemara, it means "land of the goddess, Mara."

Celtic Goddess Quiz
You know, I had to take this one.... even if it was written for women.....


Brigid, the great mother goddess of Ireland,
represents fertility, childbirth, power,
creativity and inspiration. Also known as
Brighid, Brigit and Bride, she is credited as a
protectress and guardian of children; also a
Goddess of fire, the sun, music and medicine.


What Celtic Goddess are You? (With pictures)
brought to you by Quizilla

Blackout
Our power is back on. It came back on about an hour ago....a lot faster than they were predicting. Still don't know whether I'll be working today. The building was declared closed for the day at 7:00 this morning, and hour and a half before the power came back on.

Last night, Carla and I played Magic:the Gathering by Coleman lamp. It was uncomfortably warm, but at least we had entertainment.

Gollum debates the new D&D miniatures line
Some of you may know that Wizards of the Coast is coming out with a new miniature game to replace Chainmail. It's going to be a collectible miniature game like Mage Knight and Heroclix with random packs of miniatures and looks pretty neat. However, many people are upset about it. Some, like me, were upset to see them cancel Chainmail because they wanted to go the route of Wizkids (the maker of MageKnight and Heroclix). Others are upset because they dislike the collectible format in general. Well, someone posted this on their message board and it cracked me up, so I figured I'd share:

“New minis are good. We likes the new minis.”

“No. New minis are stupid. We hates them!”

“But new minis are good! They’re pre-painted and they’re cheap.”

“Ugh! Disgusting WOTCs paint the minis! Give them to us raw…and metal…and shiny!”

“But WOTCs are our friends. They helps to fill the needs of an underserved part of the market!”

“Paint jobs are sloppy. We could paints them better with our eyeses closed.”

“But these minis not display pieces. We just wants them to play the game.”

“New minis aren’t for D&D players. They only wants us to play their new minis game. They made 3.5 just so they can sell more minis!”

“With the new minis, we can play both!”

“WOTCs are tricksy. They stole the Chainmail! The Precious! And we wants it back!”

“No. No. WOTCs want to help us. They use random packaging to reduce the number of unique sku numbers that local gaming stores need to order, streamlining the ordering process and reducing the risk of left over product that has to be taken as a write-off, thereby ensuring a lower cost to the consumer!”

“What?”

“Random minis are good!”

“No! We hates random minis! WOTCs are just jumping on the bandwagon. They makes rare minis so people will by lots of boxes! They just wants to make money! They make us buy boxes and boxes just to find the one mini we wants.”

“If you wants just one mini, you can gets it from the aftermarket.”

“Then we pays through our noses for it!”

“Not listening! Not listening!”

“We told you they was tricksy! We told you they was false!”

“WOTCs are good to us. If WOTCs make money, then we keep getting new products!”

“Stupid fat WOTCs! They don’t care about you! They’re just a faceless corporation that only wants your money to put in their filthy pocketses!”

“Well, if you don’t likes it, then don’t buys it!”

“What did you say?”

“I said…if you don’t likes it, then don’t buys it!”

Plato
The price good people pay for their indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
-Plato

Is it sexist when its reversed?
Take a look at this e-card.

Would this be funny if it joked about suffocating women? Why is male-bashing acceptable?

Quote of the Day
I looked up the definition of 'liberal' in a Random House dictionary. It gave the synonyms for 'liberal' as 'progressive,' 'broad-minded,' 'unprejudiced,' 'beneficent.' The antonyms it offered: 'reactionary' and 'intolerant.'
-- Walter Cronkite

WISH: Games for Newbies
Ginger asks us to Name three games you might use to get someone who has never roleplayed before into roleplaying.

First of all, I can name one game I wouldn't subject someone learning to ropleplay to and it's one of my favorites. Champions. Champions is a lot of fun and teh most flexible system I've ever played outside of Amber. However. the shear wealth of options when building a character can be overwhelming.

I think Amber is an excellent game to start with, provided you don't run a "throne war" ( a game where the players actively work against eachother while competing for some goal). The simplicity of the rules and the ease of character creation goes a long way to make Amber newbie accessible.

Vampire from White Wolf is an excellent beginner game. The rules and character creation are simple and easy to learn and the setting is excellent. As I've often said, Vampire works best when you leave out all the other games in the system. Vampire has a solid sysem that is simple. After that, White Wolf made their games more and more complex until Changeling had the "magic system from hell."

Finally, there is the classic. Dungeons and Dragons. I learned to play on a system that is basically a rip-off of D&D, Palladium Fantasy (and its sister game, Heroes Unlimited). Most people start with D&D and there's a reason. For all its faults, D&D is a simple, fun game. Setting-wise, the plots tend to be simple adventure games that are easy to get in to and can appeal to both kinds of gamers, roleplayers and power gamers. It's classic, traditional fantasy. I've aired my complaints about D&D a few times here, but lately I've come to realize. It has its strengths as well as weaknesses. It's a great beginner game and almost anyone interested in gaming is going to already be somewhat familiar with the genre.

Freddy vs Jason ....vs Ash!? Who's laughing now?
I have no plans to go see Freddy vs Jason as much as it guarantees to be cheeseball fun. Still, if they make this movie, I'm there on opening night! I'm a big fan of the Evil Dead movies. The problem I have with most horror movies, the lack of a heroic character worth caring about, doesn't apply to the Evil Dead movies. Ash is the ultimate in horror movie heroes, rivalled only by Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis's character in the Halloween movies).

Groovy.

Quiz
This has been emailed to me by a few friends. It's one of those email chains that you answer and send on, but this seems more like the place for this. I took out a few questions that did not fit.

Just a note, yeah, I know some of these are duplicates, but I didn't
create it....

Okay, here's what you're supposed to do...and try not to be lame and
spoil the fun. Copy (not forward) this entire e-mail and paste it onto
a new e-mail that you will send. Change all of the answers so that
they apply to you. Then, send this to a whole bunch of people you
know *INCLUDING* the person who sent it to you. The theory is that you
learn a lot of little-known facts about your friends and family. It's
fun
and easy.

**REMEMBER TO SEND IT BACK TO THE PERSON WHO SENT IT TO YOU**

1. WHAT COLOUR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES? Cream, I think. Maybe tan. I don't remember those kinds of details.
2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? See the right column, although I need to update it.
3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? At work: Yoda.
4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? Settlers of Catan, Risk
5. FAVORITE MAGAZINES? White Dwarf
6. LEASE FAVORITE SMELL? Fish cooked in a Microwave
7. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? Usually about whatever I just dreamt or whether I'm still dreaming. unfortunately, by the time I determine whether I'm still dreaming the dream I just dreamt fades out of my memory and I spend several minutes trying to remember that cool dream I just had.
8. FAVORITE COLOR? Green
9. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR? Pink, I guess. At least, I won't wear it.
10. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE? Answer...the phone?
11. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME? Not planning on having kids, although when Carla and I did talk about it, we considered Caleb for a boy's name. We never settled on a girl's name.
12. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE? If I knew that....
13. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? Chocolate
14. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? Yes
15. WHAT COLOUR IS YOUR CAR? Green
16. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY? Cool
17. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? a tan 1979 Mercury Cougar
18. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE? Jesus Christ
19. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK? Murphy's Stout. I also really like Guinness Stout and recently discovered that I like Bell's Kalamazoo Stout (a Michigan microbrew).
20. WHAT IS YOUR SIGN? Taurus
21. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI? Yes. I love Broccoli, stems and all.
22. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB WHAT WOULD IT BE? .....and it payed well? I'd probably run a comic shop or game store.
23. YOUR HAIR COLOUR? Brown
24. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? Yes. Still am.
25. FAVORITE MOVIE? Bladerunner, Casablanca or Excalibur...depending on my mood.
25½. FAVORITE ANIMES? Akira, Record of Lodoss War, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
26. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? Sometimes. Usually not.
27. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? Books.
28. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? Sumo Wrestling
29. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR? Bush wins in 2004. Seriously, my worst fear would be something bad happening to Carla and me not being able to help her, like those poor people who got phone calls from their spouses on the planes of the September 11th attacks. That is the only thought that fills me with a complete feeling of dread. I don't fear death myself but I fear seeing someone I love suffer.
30. SAY ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU. Jarrod and Patrick are both great friends who are a lot of fun to be around.
33. FAVORITE CD? Loreena McKennitt- Book of Secrets
34. FAVORITE TV SHOWS? The Prisoner, Battlestar Galactica, Are You Being Served?, Buffy
35. KETCHUP OR MUSTARD? Mustard
36. HAMBURGERS OR HOT-DOGS? Burgers. I haven't found a good veggie hot dog yet and preferred burgers to hot dogs when I ate meat anyway.
37. FAVORITE SOFT DRINK? Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi
38. THE BEST PLACES YOU HAVE EVER BEEN? Tokyo
39. WHAT SCREEN SAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW? None.
40. BURGER KING OR MCDONALD'S? If I had to eat at one or the other, I'd take BK.
41. WHAT TIME IS IT? Time to get a watch. Really. I need to get a watch.
43. ANY NICKNAMES? Online- Nuadha, Offline- Jim (very few people call me this.)
45. NUMBER OF CANDLES THAT APPEARED ON YOUR LAST BIRTHDAY CAKE? 28
47. PETS? Two dogs and a cat.
48. FAVORITE ANIMAL? Raven, Wolf and Rat.
49. TATTOO? None. I've considered a few. Ive thought of getting the Superman symbol or the eye of Horus at different times but would probably get a celtic armband or this neat celtic knot I found online that's made out of ravens.
50. HOW MUCH DO YOU LOVE YOUR JOB OR JOBS? It's a living.
51. BIRTHPLACE? Michigan
52. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE VACATION PLACE? New Orleans
53. BEEN TO AFRICA? No. That would be neat, but it's not high on my list.
54. STOLEN ANY TRAFFIC SIGNS? No.
55. EVER BEEN IN A CAR CRASH? Rear ended once at a stop sign.
56. CROUTONS OR BACON BITS? Croutons
57. 2-DOOR OR 4-DOOR CAR? 2 door.
58. COFFEE? Only at night.
59. SALAD DRESSING? Ranch
60. COLOR OF SOCKS? Black with dress shoes, grey or white with athletic shoes
61. FAVORITE NUMBER? 7.
62. FAVORITE HOLIDAY? May Day.
63. FAVORITE FOOD? Pad Thai with Tofu
64. FAVORITE DAY OF THE WEEK? Friday.
65. FAVORITE SONG? "Common People" by Pulp
66. FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR? November 1st.
67. PERFUME OR COLOGNE? None.
68. FAVORITE SCENT? Clove
69. FAVORITE THING? That's a broad category. There are a lot of "things."
70. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE? Subway
71. WHEN WAS YOUR LAST HOSPITAL VISIT? Last December.
72. HOW MANY TIMES DID YOU FAIL YOUR DRIVERS LICENCE TEST? Got it on the first try.
74. WHAT DO YOU DO MOST OFTEN WHEN YOU ARE BORED? Put in different video games and play them for 5 minutes before switching to another. Eventually say "I need a new video game."

Lilly
I've been looking for pictures that suited the normal (non-demon) form of my Champions character, Lilly. I've finally found a pic that reflects how I see her. Here she is in both forms.

Quiz
I took this quiz, figuring I wouldn't know the character but that Carla (and Jarrod) would know the character and possibly find it amusing.

...but I got Emma! I hate Emma! I get one of the few characters I know by name and its the one I completely can't stand. Someone who talks incessently about other people and meddles in their love lives? How the hell did I get this one?


You are Emma Woodhouse from Emma. A classic
only child personality, you are constantly
trying to rearrange the world (and society) to
suit your personal world-view. Mostly, you
succeed at that! You are persuasive and
charming, and almost always manage to get your
way-- which is good, because, as we all know,
your way is the right way.


Which Jane Austen Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Via Double N)

EDIT- Reading their description of her makes more sense, since my way is the right way. ;)

The Hummer
The Sierra club has its tribute to the Hummer 2/ Check it out!

Gamer Humor
This short film shows why you shouldn't mess with a guy's Yugi-oh cards (or Magic card, Pokemon cards, etc.).

Movie News
There's a little more news about the Van Helsing movie on the official website.

The cast and crew:

CAST:
VAN HELSING - Hugh Jackman
ANNA - Kate Beckinsale
DRACULA - Richard Roxburgh
FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER - Shuler Hensley
CARL - David Wenham
VELKAN - Will Kemp
IGOR - Kevin J. O'Connor

CREW:
Director: Stephen Sommers
Screenplay: Stephen Sommers
Producers: Stephen Sommers and Bob Ducsay
Executive Producer: Sam Mercer

Stephen Sommers was the director of The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, so this should be pretty good. Unfortunately, the release date has been pushed back to May 2004.

Kate Beckinsale's character is supposed to be someone who helps Van Helsing and comes from a long family line dedicated to defeating Dracula.

Quiz!
(Via MacGeek)

New Gods
I've mentioned the New Gods here several times and have wanted to give a link that gave a brief overview of the New Gods for my many friends who are not familiar with them. I found one. Movie Poop Shoot has a column called Comics 101 and has this article which gives a good overview of Kirby's cosmic stuff along with some good images of the major players I wish I had to use when I ran the game at Ambercon.

Speaking of the New Gods, I don't think I mentioned this before but the Justice League premiere with the New Gods rocked!

Bush's Top Ten Lies- The Iraq edition
Bush supporters keep saying that liberals keep referring to "one comment" that Bush made where he referred to british sources and that they are blowing that one "mistake" out of proportion. Alternet.org has this article showing that it wasn't just the one occassion where Bush and his cabal said things they knew not to be true.

Deliberately misleading the country into an war that costs our struggling economy billions, puts our soldiers in unecessary danger and makes your buddies in Hallibuton richer sounds like pretty good grounds for impeachment to me.