And Done.

The Wordpress site is running well enough now, so I'm going to call it live. All new blogging will be here from now on.

Transitioning

A new laptop has come into my life, so communication will be more frequent. Just not here. I'll be transitioning over to Wordpress in the next week. More soon.

Coming to you irregularly from the snowpocolypse

Merry Kwahanimas to all (I refuse to acknowledge festivus)!

We're snowed up to the gills here, and hoping that Santa brings us temperatures in the 40s and enough rain to wash the foul white stuff away.

Sadimac and I have trudged over to her mom's for christmas eve, where we will exchange good tidings & presents, eat homemade chicken pot pies, and play munchkin. It will be grand, but due to the snowy hell that nature/a vengeful god has thrust upon us, probably the only such activity we'll have in a timely matter this holiday season.

I wish the same good feelings & fun to you all (although not the weather), and a new year that was better than the last

-Xithor

I twot I saw Twitter phat

Now occasionally posting to Twitter for your enjoyment and my own blathering.

Election Night: Beer Four, Shot One

Well, it's been a good night so far. I'm a little worried about 64, Merkley, and measure 8 in California. Hoping for the best.

Mood: Tired, but good

Inebreation: Pleasently Drunk

Election Night: Beer Three, Shot One

Love John Stewart. Feeling the booze.

We won.

Mood: Estatic

Ineibreation: Lightly drunk.

Election Night: Beer Three

I'm settling into my third beer now, and am eyeballing the bottle of Bushmills. I'm starting to feel the drink, and thanks to twitter am thinking of, and missing Hunter S. Thompson.

The math looks good. McCain has to pull multiple rabbits out of his ass to win. Looks good.

Mood: Whistful, happy, and Hunter S. Thompsonish

Inebreation: Safe to operate a microwave, but should probably stay away from the car.

Election Night: Beer Two

Beer two, doing well. Joined Twitter, and discovered that some one else is already xithor, so I'm droidwhisperer instead.

Elizabeth Dole lost her seat, how glorious.

Mood: Good, but want to hunt & kill the usuper of my name.

Inebreation (man that's hard to spell): Feeling fine

Election Night: Beer One

It's early. I'm half way through my first beer (Newcastle: A British beer for an American election).

A bottle of Bushmills and a shot glass lie in wait for celebration and/or wallowing in sorrow.

Look to others for results, come here to gauge my mood and inebreation level.

Mood: Optomistic, but wary

Inebreation: Minimal

Hiatus

As you could probably tell, I'm on Hiatus. Maybe a few news posts here and there for awhile, but I don't think there will be much until the new year

A Year? Really?

So I noticed yesterday that today is the 1st anniversary of this blog.

(Cue the streamers, noise and party hats)

It's only been 93 posts now, which means I'm not quite posting a third of the time. Here's to trying to post more!

Political Endorsements

American politics is often like watching a Dennis Hopper movie. You know that you'll either hate it, or enjoy it despite the feeling that something is eating away at your soul.

Keeping this in mind, I hereby endorse Barak Obama for President.

Will this make a difference to anyone? No. He's not a perfect candidate (I don't like his stand on same sex partner marriage, and I don't think he'll go far enough on health care), but he's better than the alternative (she's great and all, but she there's to much baggage, she plays fast and loose with the rules, and we don't need another political dynasty) , or the unthinkable (McCain? Does any one really think that's a good idea?).

For Senate I endorse Steve Novick, because his politics are pretty good, and what better way to say fuck you to the Republicans by replacing Gordon Smith with a four foot tall liberal with a hook for a hand.

Ad Man

I've put an Google ad on the blog here, just as an experiment. It's at the bottom for now, but I'll be futzing with it as I fine tune things some more.

All part of my effort to make this a place people come to visit: If I have an ad, I can make a few bones. But, I need to be disciplined and write more. We all win

I know....

I know it's been awhile. Holidays are keeping us busy, and work's been very crazy. I'll post, and send quiche recipes as soon as I can.

Oh, and for the love of all that is holy, some one please buy me this. We can't afford it right now, and It will be hard to find later.

Off to Orycon

Sadimac and I are off to Orycon this weekend, so There'll be nothing new here until Monday or Tuesday. Have a good weekend all.

Laptop makes couple happier! Batboy and Space Aliens endorse Obama!

The freedom of not having to sit in my office to write is, well, freeing. I'm currently on the porch with Sadimac, giving her the security of having me near by. Meanwhile I am able to not only be with her, but I'm also sit down and write something (I'm ruined for writing on paper nowadays: It's the computer screen or nothing).

So, every once in a while, we all obtain an object that actually improves our lives rather than making them more complicated. What then, dear readers, out of what I'm sure is the flotsam of technological junk at your collective disposal, has actually made your life tangibly better?

Mac Goodness

I finally got my Mac. It's a used Powerbook G4, but I don't care. it's better than my PC, and I can actually do stuff on line and hang out with Sadimac simultaneously.

This means more blogging by the way, and more getting stuff done on the computer in general. Heaven forbid, it will probably give me more time to write as well.

Music lists and putting my brain inbetween gears

My Dad posted a top 25 favorite song list the other day. It seemed like a pleasant diversion from the utter bull shit that my job has been lately, so I've decided to bang one out for myself. No particular order here, just a stream of music if you will:

1. Halleluiah by Leonard Cohen: If I let myself, Leonard Cohen could populate half of this list.

2. Goodbye Forever Once Again by Jason Webley: Go to my links, click on Jason Webley. Imagine if Tom Waites drank a lot of absinthe and decided to take up gypsy folk accordion music. A thousand times better than it sounds, you will not be disappointed.

3. Van Halen by Nerf Herder: Pure nerd rock, plus, they provided the theme song for Buffy.

4. Seven More Minutes by The Rentals: Matt Sharp left Weezer, and went on to make something oh so much more special

5. Army by The Ben Folds Five

6. Coin Operated Boy by the Dresdin Dolls

7. Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash

8. Bicycle Race by Queen: I really miss Freddy Mercury. Every once in a while you see a glimmer of what he was in the performance of others, but nothing can replace the last Avatar of Dionysus.

9. Lovin' Yummy by Rick Bain and the Genius Position: Somewhat silly, but if fracking rocks.

10. (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding by Elvis Costello and the Attractions

11. War Ensemble by Slayer

12. Desperado by The Eagles

13. Rocketman by Elton John: Yeah, I know he’s a bit faded, but his work from the 70’s is frelling awesome

14. Between the Bars by Elliot Smith

15. War Pigs by Black Sabbath

16. Highywayman by The Highwaymen

17. Apollo by Hum

18. Velouria by The Pixies

19. Mother’s Little Helper by the Rolling Stones: The fuckin’ Stones man! (How I wish they had all died in about 1978)

20. Winter by Tori Amos

21. 3^rd Planet by Modest Mouse

22. Someone to Watch over Me by Willie Nelson

23. Dear God by XTC

24. Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes

25. Arena Song by Sugar Boom.

The fun thing about my brain and these lists is that this particular grouping would be fundamentally different if written on any other day.

Blips in the Universe, and some house keeping

Dubya seems to think that we should have stayed in Vietnam, and the Chairman of the Atlanta NAACP has decided to defend Michael Vick.

Whatever.

I'm in a work crunch busy social phase that hasn't left as much time for blogging as I'd like. The posts for the last two D&D sessions should be up soon, and I'm in theory getting a laptop in the next week or two that should help give me more time to write with.

Meet the New Guys: Now with added bonus footage!

Work has been well, work so I haven't been able to finish up the wrap up of our last campaign yet. I'll finish that up on Sunday morning with one more grand post, and then the first session of the new campaign recap should go up Monday afternoon.

In the meantime...

The new characters for our D&D group will be starting their grand adventure on Saturday, so I'm going to go ahead and give a primer on the who is who and what is what.

First we have my character, Soren Ashwind an Aasimar (Human with angelic ancestry) Cleric devoted to the elemental forces of the universe. He had a rough childhood, with a mother killed by dragon fire and a father who's reaction to that tragedy was to become a drunkard. After bouncing around a bit (and his father died from a fire at the jail he was being held in for theft), he found himself in a small seminary in a remote village. He learned the ways of the priesthood, married, and settled down to start a family.

Then his wife gave birth to a son that was definitely not his. The marriage quickly dissolved, and Soren, not able to bear the sight of his ex-wife living with the biological father of what was supposed to be his child, decided to take up a spear and become a wandering priest.


Next, there is Erich's character Kalvik, a Bugbear gladiatorial slave who is fresh off of gaining his freedom by killing his master and guard after he over heard them discussing how he was to be traded to a notoriously cruel slave master for a Minotaur.

Kalvik's life has also been hard, much harder than Soren's in fact. Gnolls slaughtered his tribe and dragged the survivors off to sell into slavery, stopping to eat one of them when they got hungry. Kalvik was sold to a Halfling (Hobbit) slave master who trained him to fight. That same slave master's daughter taught him to read, write, and speak the Halfling language, which is how he learned of his impending trade, which caused him to fight for his freedom.

Then we have Sadimac's Rossthaylock. She's a Killoren, which is a type of faerie that the world made in a fit of grief over the extinction of a fragile plant species. They are a young people, and are just now sending the their first members out to the world at large. She is impetuous, affectionate, and a bit naive. The defining trait of her people is that each day they can take on a different personality aspect: either the Ancient, the Hunter, or the Destroyer.

She has been teleported to "civilization" with all her gear, and her beloved pony, Pony. She is meeting her first people outside of her own kind, and she's already found a bit of trouble...

and now, a the tale of how the Kelorian came to be (by Sadimac):

The Lost Elves

In the year we were born, the wood elves left this island and this is why.

The young of the elven village had a talent for sorcery. When their mainland kinsmen warned of a horrible war and called all the elves to give aid, the village elders sent the youths out of the village to hone their arcane battle skills.

"Prepare to fight," they said. And "take care you do not harm the birds or the worms or the delicate young vines. Be wary of infecting any babes still in womb or egg with unnatural power."

And so the group of mages found a desolate scrub. They saw no tails or leaves. They heard no songs. They could not smell even the smallest hint of turning earth. Being sylvan elves, they were certain The World had given them the keenest senses. Cry for the pride of the elves, who sent not a single druid to temper youthful determination. Laugh with The World for She always has the final word.

All day they blasted, and took notes, and argued, and made plans.

"When the foul army does this, we shall do that. The greatest wizards of the cities will be stunned by our precision, by our deadly force."

Through the starlight they developed secret signals, thinking themselves subtle. But they never saw the seedlings.

What seedlings? This all happened before we were made, so we have no name for them. The sprites tell us they smelled a new smell. The rocks sing only an echo of those seedlings' song. Even the birds cannot find just that shade of green in all the world. They were new, the World's latest offspring, our elder brothers. And they were young, still just two birth-leaves each. And then the ice and fire and lightning flying out of the elves struck them down. Every little one killed. Dream of their screams, dance for their short lives.

Now The World is love and loves all the children upon Him, the elves no less than the mightiest waterfall. But the murder of the seedlings turned love to grief. And in Her grief, The World sent Her hunting beasts to kill the sorcerers in their blankets. She called the village's companions back into the forest. Only the magical beasts born of elven wizardry stayed. She blocked their clerics from harnessing any natural domain. She turned their crops and gardens to dust. She let every beast they hunted escape. The dryads say they saw a unicorn kill his paladin maiden. And the druids who were so neglectful of their duty to guide were stripped of every gift She had given them, returned to a child-like innocence with no knowledge or power.

But The World is love and He loves the sylvan elves, with their careful balance of learning and wisdom. He gave them one last gift. He let them find the scorched field of elven corpses. In that field, they saw vines bearing large fruit. The fruit pulsed with life and sang a song even the densest of them heard. The vines burrowed their feeding suckers into the sorcerers' remains and the village fled, pursued by a primal fear.

"Remember the fear," the fruit sang. "Tell all the humanoids - When you needlessly kill a blade of grass, you poison your kingdoms at their roots. The World is making new children to show you how to heed His call."

In less than a sweet-fly's lifespan, the entire village sailed away. The fruit continued to grow and grow and grow. Soon, the first of us broke through the peels. The birds gave us eggs, the trees gave us flowers, the worms came willingly to our mouths, and so we grew. The World has taught us for sixty-four seasons. We shall go out from this island to see if people have learned the lost elves' lesson.