Beyond the Void.

I just ordered enrollment information from a local college. I’m not sure what I am going to take as far as classes go. I think at first I will just take things that interest me. Like a Photoshop class would be cool. Web Design classes would be killer also. But I also would like to take some history, writing and philosophy classes.

I see how enriched and enlightened my wife seems to be after taking some of her classes and I want that also. I want to recapture some of what I feel I have lost since I graduated in 1993. I used to think I was pretty intelligent, heck the tests told me that I am well above average. But lately, well for the last 2 or 3 years, I have felt like I have lost some of that intelligence. Its my hope that this will be an enriching experience for me as well.

Recently on a message board that I visit often someone asked “Could someone tell me the difference between the Democratic and Republic parties of the US?”

About 15 other people replied, all of them posted very good answers and covered the topic well. None of them seemed overly biased either, which I found surprising . The following is what I added to the thread.
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I applaud you all for not letting your personal views overly taint your descriptions here. My post however will not be so clear of personal views however. Below you will see a sample of U.S. Voter frustration with the choices we have been given.

I am ready to fire both parties. Neither speaks to me as a voter, neither represents my views completely. The big government, lobbyist and blatant lies we have now from both parties makes me wish there was a third choice. This coming fall I will probably vote for a third party. Right now there is only one party that seems to be even close to being considered a viable third party and that’s the independent party. However they will not receive my vote either, as I can not stand Ralph Nader.

I am effectively a man with out a party. And so I search…

What I wish I could do is just plug my stances on all the different issues the nation faces into some interface and have it spit out the party that fit the way I believe. However this would not ensure I would vote for that party. I FIRMLY believe in not voting for parties. I believe in voting for people. Who represents my beliefs the closest and will do a good job at the same time. Voting for the best person is what I shoot for now, not what the party line is.

I am a registered Republican that voted Democrat in the last Presidential election. I feel like a double looser for this. Not because Gore didn’t win, and not for any of the issues in FL. I feel this way because when I voted in 2000, I didn’t vote for who I felt would do the best job. I voted for the guy that I felt would do the least amount of damage and had a chance to win. It was really an anti-Bush vote more then anything. This is a horrid way to spend my vote.

In the past I voted for “Least Damage”, and I am not sure what has made me see the light this election cycle but I am committed to only voting for who I believe to be the best man for the job, regardless of his chances of winning and regardless of party. I believe if more
people dropped their party blinders and looked at people instead of parties then the US might be able to break the strangle hold the current big two have on the nation. (however I will not even fathom a guess on how that would impact the nation as a whole. I will leave that to one of the people that will surely slam this post.) [ed. So far no one has]

So while not totally on or off topic, I hope this shows you that not everyone is committed to the current party system here in the US.

-Alabrax

I would like to point out that I am not on the fringe of either the right or the left, I am very centrist. I am just a centrist that’s fed up with the current choices.

Ever see a trailer for a movie and think “Holy Crap that’s going to be so good!” then get to the theater and wish you had saved your time and money? Its happened to me before and chances are if you go to the movies some times, its happened to you also.

Well I just saw a trailer for a new Japanese movie and I think it looks like it could be REALLY good. It could also be really horrible. Its hard to tell. A few months back Mtv showed a Japanese movie called “Volcano High” that I thought looked really good from the previews but it was a high holy stinker once I got to see it. It wasn’t just bad it was horrid. So bad in fact I couldn’t watch it all. And that’s saying a lot, just ask my wife, I can watch some really bad programming just for the novelty of it. Not this though, it had nearly no redeeming qualities to it. The only thing that kept me watching for as long as I did was the kung fu, which was really over done in all the wrong ways, and that I just thought “Something interesting HAS to happen soon… doesn’t it?”

Here is the trailer that I saw. Like I said…This could be really good or this could be really bad. I think as long as the movie doesn’t get campy it should be ok. Honestly though, if there isn’t an English version or at least an English sub-title version it won’t really matter to me how good or bad this movie is.

Casshern Trailer

Here is the Movie’s website.
http://www.casshern.com/

News from gamingreport.com

New D20 supplement
The book is over 800 pages long

For comparison:
Ruins of Undermountain: 150 Encounters
Worlds Largest Dungeon: 1600 Encounters

Dragon Mountain: 12 tribes of Kobalds & one Dragon
Worlds Largest Dungeon: Every monster from the SRD!

Tomb of Horrors: One Lich and a fear trap
Worlds Largest Dungeon: Enough maps to fill your bedroom wall, and enough traps to kill every character you've ever played!

Menzoberrazan: A half-dozen drow families warring over who is "more chaotic"
Worlds Largest Dungeon: Drider slavers, an ageless angel-demon conflict, an undead civil war, dead titans, hordes of derro madmen, and a terrasque digger all under ONE roof!

Note: GamingReport has heard quite a bit about the new "WORLDS LARGEST DUNGEON" product. You'll be able to start a character from level 1 and take them all the way through epic (if you live that long). Each level is to have a major goal and they only get more complex the deeper you go. We'll post all the details we know a bit later.

I have a friend that is crass, rude and generally an ass. But to a guy I guess this is sort of what we look for in our friends. Anyhow last night he was his normal farting, loud mouthed, rude commented self… until I said something to him about posting a pic of him on the net.

Well dear lord he got as serious as a heart attack when I said that. He tried to take some bad pics of me with his cell phone, and looked for some bad pics of me on another friend’s computer. (Granted there are some pics that if combined with some photoshop skills (which he doesn’t have) would look pretty bad.) However no matter what he found I did not let him scare me into not doing what I had already made up my mind to do. I suggested that maybe I should bring my digital camera to our next gaming session… this also freaked him out. I guess he is camera shy, although Tim and the term 'shy' are to things I NEVER thought I would hear together.

So here we are, his fear of this pic getting out vs. my will to do as I please. Without further ado …

The Real Tim

Business minded and a natural leader, you are a canidate to be embraced by the Ventrue clan. You can be rather dominant with a high stamina however, you tend to have obsessive compulsive tendencies...especially when it comes to your food. You are the clan the others look to organize groups and factions. Generally princes are among this clan. What Vampire Clan Do You Belong To?

Note to my gaming buddies...

I added a Gaming Calendar to the left on this page. I am going to PM you the user name and password to add and edit games on there via the message board. I hope this gets used to great effect and we can figure out the when/where/what of the things we play better.

Enjoy

Yark!

Today, I have what I call "Christmas Eyes". I had them yesterday also. Oh your asking, what are Christmas Eyes? Well I have green eyes, but today the green is swimming in a pool of red. Oh sure you might call them bloodshot, but bloodshot normally means alittle pink. My eyes are not alittle pink... they are red. I have no idea what I did to get them this way. I hope it goes away soon, it gives me that sort of "on drugs" or "It comes from Outter Space" look.

As some of you who personally know me I have wanted to sell tee shirts for some time. I guess I think I have things to say that are interesting enough to put on tee shirts and sell. Anyhow in the past I have tried this but sort of gave up on the dream because the only options I had was to make the tee shirts in white. Well I just found a company that will make them to order and in a number of different colors.

So coming soon, I will be selling gaming tee shirts from this site.

For those interested I am using 99dogs.com to make this possible.

Its seems that gamers, at least the gamers I know love two things. Drama and games. I think we do as much crying as we do playing. Between the anal retentive guys trying to force everyone to conform to their rules, to obnoxious assholes going for shock value to the out of control anger fits that we have seen it’s a wonder that we game together at all. We are so dysfunctional as a group its not even funny.

I read this article called Five Geek Social Fallacies. I read this and I see our gaming group in it. We suffer from all of these to one degree or another. However I think we suffer from #1 the worst. If we didn’t we could have cut the disruptive folks right out.

See there is a long history of gaming with about 80% of the group. They have played together back in middle school, and it’s not even conceivable to anyone that some of those people are not adding to the gaming group. I’m not saying we can’t be friends with everyone, but I think gaming together and being a functioning gaming group might be more then we can hope for. The newer folks in the group are not all innocent either. I wonder how the drama would be if all the new folks just let the original gamers be and do their own thing. I don’t want to do that though, since I like everyone in the group, some more then others however.

What’s funny is just by posting this, it is almost for sure going to cause some drama all by itself. I have a feeling some folks are going to take this personally, even though I never mentioned any names. We are all so ready to be oppressed.

A few folks I know also have blogs, so I am adding link to their sites for your viewing pleasure.

One blog I wanted to make special note of is from my buddy Memarex, BenWa'sWorld
His blog is full of links to funny movies and funny websites. There isn’t much in the way of posts that tell you about anything the blogger, no rants or personal turmoil… but its still a very good site. I am supposed to do a game review for it every week, I have not started that yet though. I will be sure to post them here also if I do.

BenWa's World
A Deathlord's Diary
The Chronicle of Neph
digital blasphemy

I’ve been sick since Friday. I called in on Friday, thinking that sure throat is sore but not talking all Friday would help it and Saturday I should be better. No dice. Saturday was worse, and Sunday worse still. Here we are on Monday and I am still sick. So since I have all this time off I think I will try to post something interesting today.

I have a post brewing inside me… but due to NDA, I have to wait until the release of the Exalted book "Graceful Wicked Masks" to post it.

/sigh

Have you ever had a word stuck in your head? It’s not the meaning of the word or anything really deeper then the way it sounds. But for some reason it sticks with you.

Right now I have the word, or rather the name Zipacna stuck in my head. Turns out that Zipacna was an Mayan god/giant that was renown for his wickedness.

It’s odd when this sort of things happen. I remember a few years back I had a word get stuck on repeat and I repeated it until the word lost all meaning to me. And it just kept running through my brain until it had taken on a whole new meaning.

No I am not insane! The 3 voices in my head have agree with me on this.

Last night I had this really cool idea for something to write about. I thought of this just as I was going to bed. I thought to myself “Maybe I should go jot down some notes on this before I go to bed. Nah, this is such a cool idea how could I forget it. I’ll just write about it tomorrow “.

Well as one would expect, I can’t remember what the idea was. Next time I will just have to get up and jot my notes down, then go to bed.

$99,000

Townhouse for sale by owner. Two bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, kitchen island, neutral carpet and flooring, pool in backyard, enclosed patio, additional shelving and storage features, storage shed, close to shopping, etc.

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