Not Quite TeenWolf

I was going to write a TeenWolf fan fiction (I didn't know what fan fiction was, I was just going to rewrite TeenWolf, because it seemed like fun).  In my version, Scott was an actual werewolf who was murdering and eating people, only his brain couldn't handle it, so he created the TeenWolf stuff to cope. I didn't write it; turns out there was a crappy TV show version that was close - though not really.  Not at all like what I was envisioning. Anyway, this was the opening...

The thing you have to remember is that lycanthropy (being a werewolf) is a curse.  A curse that has plagued our family since the 1500s.  Sometimes it skips a generation, most times it doesn't.  It affects all of the sons of the Howard Family; and once, in 1890, a daughter.

The curse is insidious.  Dangerous.  It's more than just the transformation from man to animal.  Or, rather, that transformation is more than physical.

In my mind, the weeks leading up to and following my first transformation are a psychotic blur.  On the one hand, I know the truth - the horrors that stalked little Beacontown that year - injury, death, and worse.  I have memories of those horrors; but they are the impassioned, disjointed nightmares of the wolf.  On the other hand, is the delusion.  The mind of man is not meant to run wild in the world.  And when a man becomes the wolf, some part of him breaks.  A coping mechanism.

My delusion protected me from the evils perpetrated by my monstrous inner beast; but they left me completely unable to cope with the town around me - I was paralyzed by a fear I could neither comprehend nor share.  Beacontown was held in the tyrannical grip of a monstrous beast-man.

I thought we were trying to win the basketball championship.

If it hadn't been for the love and caring of James Styles (my good friend) and Bethany Scott (my best friend "Boof" who would become Bethany Howard, thank God), I would have been consumed by the wolf; I would have never known the truth, and I wouldn't have been able to spend my life trying to make amends.

Which, of course, I can never do.

My story is not the light-hearted coming of age story I'd thought it to be, but a nightmare tale of horror, terror, and depravity.  I do not want to face it, even now; but you have to hear it, boy; because sometimes the curse skips a generation; but most times, it doesn't.

The delusions never go away, of course.  But they become manageable.  You learn to differentiate the lie of your mad-cap adventures as the TeenWolf from the truth of the monster within; and you use the lie to keep from going insane.

The first time I felt it - before I had any notion there was something to feel, was at the season opener against the Dragons.  But it scared the shit out of me, and I suppressed it.

No Blog Today

On my way to the hospital.

Grand Designs

So I've got this blog, right? It sits here, out in cyberspace; declaring to the world all sorts of things I'm not entirely comfortable with. And I'm not referring to the content, but to what's not in it.

When I first started this thing, I had such grand designs. I always have such grand designs. That, maybe, is my problem. I get an idea in my head, and it's so big – so wonderful – I have to work on it, I have to make it happen. Almost always to the exclusion of all the big, wonderful ideas that have come before it; but I do work on these things. A lot. It's sort of my hobby; creating shit.

So I have - in my hard drive, written (and drawn) on reams of paper, and floating around my mess of a room on napkins and cardboard and filling who knows how many cds – a veritable copper mine of art, fiction, and gaming material. All of it's “unfinished,” but it's also what you would call, works in progress.

I'd like to start making some of that progress. And because I'm always trying to work an angle, I'd also like to begin putting that work here, where it might generate page impressions and maybe bring my AdSense revenue up over a hundred dollars so I can make a little dough.

So I'm changing the direction of this blog. Or, rather, I'm refining it. I'm turning it into my gaming blog; where I intend to publish every campaign world, every NPC, every game note for – well, not every, but – a great many of my ongoing gaming projects. For the four of you who read my blog, let me know if one of these interests you more than the others, and I'll work more on that game until one of the others (or, Cthulhu eat my soul – something new) captures my imagination.

Here's a not-so-short list of the material I feel belongs here:

167 Subscribers (World of Darkness horror on YouTube).

Balefire (The Zombie Apocalypse in the World of Darkness - from another angle).

Clone (A series of Star Wars d6 Adventures concerning a squad of Troopers declared MIA toward the end of the Clone Wars – not sure if this can be translated into SAGA, but willing to try).

Coruscant Rising (A Closer look at Imperial City for any System and Game Notes for a Star Wars d6 Campaign that explores the Rebellion in the shadow of the Emperor himself [perhaps with SAGA Edition Conversions as well).

Council of Wyrms (Mutants & Masterminds. Dragons in the Modern Age).

Eternal Sun (a D&D4e Campaign Setting & a Campaign in which that setting is overrun with a terrible plague of Undead).

First Year (Mutants & Masterminds in the foremost School of Witchcraft & Wizardry).

Gamma World: Los Augustine (Setting and Adventures on the Last Coast)

Hunter's Moon (Gurps Paleolithic Fantasy).

Man's Reach (Lovecraft in Spaaaaaace! - and Gurps).

Quantum Jack (Originally d20 Modern, but probably better suited for World of Darkness. I may post both. Your name is Jack Logan. You've been ripped out of your reality and brought to this one by an evil mastermind who happens to be named Jack Logan. As it turns out, Jack Logan is kind of a dick in most of the multiverse; and now you're all here and it's up to you to stop them, er, yourself).

Tales of Adventure (a D&D4e Campaign based on conversions of some of the top 30 adventure modules of all time (of all time!).

Urge (Originally written for D&D4e but easily [and logically] converted to Star Wars SAGA, Urge follows a war-torn tribe of Sandpeople as they try to rebuild and survive their pilgrimage across the Dune Sea).

Where Liberty Dwells (Gurps Spies and Soldiers in American Revolution).

World's End (Just what happens to all those missing ships and planes and civilizations? My take on the Bermuda Triangle – Gurps, but I think something similar has been done in one of their splatbooks. I'll have to look).

In addition to all this mess, I'll also be blogging about gaming, discussing (even if only one-sided) the pros and cons of different systems, and writing short pieces about the continuing adventures of the Saint Augustine Flaming Dragons of Death, as well as the odd bit of raw fiction (when I get a wild hair up my ass). Also, some of (a lot of?) this material will be cross-posted to Obsidian Portal; but I'm unsure about advertising there, and I am a greedy bastard, so we'll see.

And if you're one of the illustrious and want me to run one of these that I haven't, let me know and I'll get on that.

Ouchr

This pain in my head right now is the most powerful thing I've ever experienced. It's like a fucking kidney stone in my mouth. If you've never experienced a kidney stone, they say it's the closest a man will ever come to the pain of child birth. Now imagine delivering a 9-pound baby through a hole in your fucking tooth.

It hurts like a sonufabitch.

Now imagine you've been in labor for eight hours - trying to push that little shit out of your mouth. I felt the first twinges of pain around ten. I took a 500mg Ibuprofen and put another in my pocket, just in case.

Then the pain flared up - and I'm talking wrath of god shit here - around noon and I took the second. Neither really helped; or else, god help me because I don't want to know what it would have felt like without them.

I managed to keep my wits about me. I didn't tell anyone to "fuck off" who needed it. I didn't punch anyone who really wanted punching.

There were a lot of people who really wanted me to punch them in their bitch faces today.

I got off work and came home, where I took a pill for nerve pain. I don't know what it was. It just says "nerve pain" on the side of the bottle, in hand-written letters, with "3xDay" and "No Alcohol" written below that.

Motherfucker, it didn't work. At all.

Since then, I've added another 1000mg of Ibuprofen and I just took my very last Oxycontin.

If I die of pain killer overdose it was most certainly not suicide. My life sucks the shit right now, but I know I can do better. Son of a bitch, I'm trying.

Still no improvement. I'm waiting for the Oxy to kick in, but it's taking so long...

I tried salt. Sea salt and black pepper, ground and mixed and applied to the site, often helps relieve tooth pain. I tried chewing gum. I tried Listerine (usually helps). I ran around the block to get my heart rate up. That helped a little. I did push-ups when the pain came back. I even tried stuffing some over-the-counter temporary filling repair stuffed into the offending hole. It just wouldn't stay put. Then there's the half-tube of Sever-Pain Orajel.

The only thing that helps so far is resting my head on a soft blanket in a sort of lazy "child's pose" from yoga, with my mouth open, drooling on the carpet. I don't know how important the drooling part is. Once I get up, though, it only lasts about a minute. Then I have to go back to the floor.

Okay, I'm back. Maybe it will stick this time. If I don't die from this, I promise: I'll go looking for a dentist who'll let me pay-over-time in the morning. That can be step two of my "make Dave a better person" list instead of whatever it is (down after "get medical & dental insurance").

On a slightly brighter note, I'm about 15-16,000 words into the book. I don't know exactly, because I'm writing it long-hand and then transferring it to the PC. I was meant to be writing now; but I'm preoccupied.

I just don't want to hurt.

The Green Dragon

This is a response to the video "Religious Right on Dangers of Environmentalism" posted by RightWingWatch.org. As Right Wing Watch is a watchdog channel, and not proponents of the message (and because this response was too long for my YouTube channel), I decided to post it here. It is mostly and embrace of what it is "they" think an environmentalist is. There are moments when I kind of lost my composure. Moments when I switched gears without warning (mostly following the track of the video). At some points I stopped calling for action and went on the offensive, as though the idiots in the video would deign to read my words. I left it all in here. It seemed the best way to provoke dialog was to go ahead and voice my opinions and feelings - even if they're wrong.

You can search far and wide.
You can drink the whole town dry.

But you'll never find a beer so brown,
as the one we drink in our home town.

You can drink your fancy ales.
You can drink 'em by the flagon.

But the only brew for the brave and true
comes from the Green Dragon. - J.R.R. Tolkien

I believe there is a dire need for radical environmentalism. Now I'm not talking about a turn to violence, at least not overtly. I believe that there is a call for some sort of guerrilla information campaign. A Shock & Awe distribution of truth and solution that could blanket the developed world and start opening some eyes. To this end, in the interest of sparking conversation and debate, I present the following points:

Targeting The Children.

It seems to me that the first priority of any "Green Dragon" MUST be to target the children. Those who are blinded by ignorance and religious indoctrination against worldly stewardship (that's right, I said it) are going to prove least likely to bend to the winds of truth.

Children however, are malleable, open, willing to learn. They can - and want to - be taught the truth. And it is not the world that environmentalists are trying to protect. The world will endure, regardless of whether or not it remains hospitable for human life. It is these very children, and the children to come that (now) we are fighting tooth and nail to save from these blind, greedy, ignorant fascists.

The Needs of the Many

The needs of the Earth, of Nature (more specifically, the needs of our ecosystem) must come before the needs of her inhabitants. It sounds contradictory, anti-human, or even sinister, but without a balance in Nature, Nature will turn on us. Nature will either lash out and destroy us all, or simply stop feeding us.

The poor, the hungry, the uneducated, even the self-deluding asshats who are fighting to yoke Nature like a dog and force it under heel, are all going to die.

We're going to die slow, miserable, agonizing deaths.

The environment must come first. This is not to say that we should ignore the needs of our fellow men. Far from it. I think any environmentalist in his right mind must understand that we have to form a part of that balance in Nature. All of us. But while the needs of every single human must be met, and met today; there are some desires that can and will be put on hold until we have come to terms with our planet.

Those who stand under the shadow of the Green Dragon, who take up arms in its name, must not fall prey to the deceptions of the undereducated, the deluded, and the outright deranged. We must look at the Universe with an open, reasoned mind, and we must ask questions of that Universe and seek answers within the methodologies of rationality. We, as a species, have found within Nature the means to destroy her. We can find - whether within Nature or within ourselves - the means to rescue her from that destruction.

And we must be radical in our actions, our speech, our steps toward confronting the lies and disinformation spread about the sustainability of our grotesquely overindulgent lifestyles. It is time to stop listening respectfully to the bullshit these people are trying to foist onto us - onto our own children and start calling them on it.

You cannot speak of "human prosperity" or "human freedom" without addressing humanity. And I'll be completely fucking honest here. I don't give a rat's ass if you get to keep your wealth and comfort in the face of this. So long as one person in the world doesn't have enough to eat; so long as one human being has to sleep on the ground or eat dirt, just to have something in her stomach, the Green Dragon doesn't give two shits about your comfort.

Until every human being can be said to be within reach of prosperity, until every human being can be said to be free, your "human prosperity," your "human freedom" is meaningless. It is a lie - a disease of the foulest sort that, yes, I am out to fucking eradicate.

So long as you or your organization or your corporation or your group or team or club or fucking religion stands against a future in which our children can walk in the same light and breath the same air and enjoy the same world that we take for granted, then yes, I am your enemy; and my goals include an end to your doctrines.

A Spritual Battle

This is more than a political battle. More than a matter of mere education. The enemies of the Green Dragon have personalized their enmity for the well-being and safety of their fellow man by calling it their spiritual right, the divinely inspired gifts of their god. We can have no choice but to stand against these lies, to dissect and dissolve them in the public forum - whenever and wherever we can.

Make no mistake. These enemies of humanity view this as a spiritual battle - a mandate from heaven that no one will save this planet from destruction, not so long as it involves making them change even a light bulb.

These mother fuckers hold in their deranged little hearts, the notion that their god will come one day and wipe away the world. For two-thousand years, they have believed it would happen tomorrow; and so long as they and their children are allowed to continue in this delusion, they cannot help but see the fight to protect our habitat as - not just frivolous - but evil. Evil that flies in the face of all that they have deemed good in the eyes of their imaginary god.

The Religion of Environmental Science

The heart of science is its ability to adapt to new information. So long as we can look at the Universe and learn from it, our knowledge will change, and Science - which is nothing more than the process by which we add to that knowledge - will always be the key to understanding the best methods of saving ourselves from extinction.

Science is the exploration of Truth. If we can be said to have any religion, than it must be the search for Truth. But our understanding of that Truth must be malleable, must be open to the possibility that there is more to understand than what is already known. This is Science. And we must embrace it.

No longer can we stand effectively against these nutjobs who want nothing less than for their way of life to go on undeterred - regardless of the cost to their fellow man or the detrimental impact that way of life is having on their own habitat. We must undertake to understand the science behind the grandstanding of politicians and celebrity. We must know the answers to challenges put before us by these, frankly, evil people.

But picketing and shouting slogans will not suffice. No longer can we rely on the regurgitated catch phrases of a few popular scientists. A deeper understanding of the science behind the pop culture must be understood. We must embrace the scientific study of our environment, in order to protect our niche within it.

The Poor

I am so fucking through with the poor. I'm through worrying about the poor. Fuck the poor. It's about 200, maybe 2,000 years past time we stopped letting these people live in squalor. It's past time we stuck out a hand and started picking these fuckers up and putting them on the path. There are buildings in the world that are nearly a half-mile tall. One, at least, that exceeds that height. It cost 1.5 Billion dollars to erect that one building alone. Starbucks made $700 Million dollars a year selling bad coffee to people who prefer their milkshakes warm. There are shoes that cost more money than some people make in a year.

Meanwhile, there are people who throw away edible food. People who own clothes they never wear, computers they never use, televisions they never watch, fucking refrigerators that sit in unused rooms and never have food put in them. There are men and women who eat the equivalent of four or more meals at one sitting.

When the fuck are we going to stop being such assholes?

There are people in America who call themselves poor and yet have roofs over their heads and food in their mouths. People who have access to the internet, who watch cable TV and are really more wealthy than the Pharaohs of Egypt; than the Kings of Babylon.

You're goddamn right I hate the poor. I'm so fucking sick of poverty it makes my teeth hurt. That's not an exaggeration, I'm in dire need of dental work. But environmentalists like me don't want to eradicate the people. We want to do away with the poverty. There's just no fucking reason for one person in the world to go hungry today if anyone in the world can be said to have compassion.

That Not-Quite Overt Call to Arms I Mentioned Earlier

I think that what you have to open your eyes and ears and hearts to is this: You have no right to the wealth you possess. You have no right to live a life of excess and waste while others die of exposure and malnutrition. No matter how hard you think you worked for it, but especially if you're a preacher, an athlete or some other kind of entertainer. As of right now, you only possess that wealth because we allow you to.

Only because we have not come to take it.

But if you don't start showing some compassion, you are in for a rude awakening. Someone will come to my aid, and we will steal you away in the dead of night and drop your ass overseas in the goddamn center of life-sucks and we will liquidate your fortune and start ending poverty our way.

There is no god granting you leave to ignore the suffering of others. Nothing has been entrusted to you that wasn't taken by force from someone else. It's high time you fucking gave something back.

And it's high time you took your head out of your ass and stopped trying to destroy the only planet that can support our species.

Heroes

I've been writing this story (it's taking a while). It's a hero's journey tale, which ought to have been a simple affair to put on paper. Alas, had I only taken the Hero's Journey myself.

Well, maybe I did, a little. Maybe I'm still on the Hero's Journey. Maybe this is the part where the hero - filled with despair - succumbs to the temptations of the world and grows fat and lazy, spending all of his time looking at the amazing lives of other people on the internet and wishing he was doing more.

No, wait. That's not in the Hero's Journey, exactly, is it?

But it got me thinking. Actually, I was thinking about who inspired the protagonist of the story I'm not writing right now, because I'm writing this. And that got me thinking about who my heroes are, have been. It's a crazy, stupid, incredibly long list, but here are a few in no particular order:

Luke Skywalker

Other kids wanted to be Firemen or Astronauts or even Jedi. I wanted to be Luke Skywalker. I figured it out later, but that's always kind of lurked in the background, even today.

Stephen King

Say whatever the hell you want (you book snob) about the so-called "pedestrian" nature of Stephen King's work. The man can spin a tale. I can't think of one King story I've read that let me down. Silver Bullet, maybe (I read the script). Stephen King's On Writing was the book that made me think I could be a writer, after a smattering of praise from a 11th-grade English teacher. I wish now I'd abandoned everything else right then (maybe not drama) and only written until there were no words left in me. I wish I could do that now.

Richard Harris

Richard Harris was a drunk and a scalawag who quite possibly funded the IRA; but he was in a movie called "Triumph of a Man Called Horse," which was the first movie I saw that made me think I wanted to be an actor.

You may not know that I wanted to be an actor. I gave up on that dream. Fuck I don't like admitting that.

Richard Harris led an amazing life too. He told the best stories, he drank a lot, he went were he wanted to go, said what he wanted to say, and did whatever the hell he wanted to do. I always wanted to have balls like that. Sometimes I think Peter O'Toole is the man who was my hero here. Holy crap I'd loved to have gone drinking with those two. No. Richard Harris was Arthur, and John Mills, and so much more.

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan made me want to go to space even more than Luke Skywalker did, almost as much as Neil deGrasse Tyson does. More than that, Sagan makes me want to keep learning. keep studying. Be smarter. Better. More.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Tyson seems to have picked up where Sagan, regrettably, left off - he practically studied at the man's feet. He is so infectious when he talks about science, about his own field of astrophysics, specifically. I can't help but wanting to know more. I hope for two things for Mr. Tyson. First, that he doesn't have to face any of the negativity from other scientists that Sagan is rumored to have had to face. Second, that he has the time and inclination to take the reigns of some modern incarnation of Cosmos.

Kurt Vonnegut

I came to Vonnegut kind of late in the game. I already knew I wanted to write, I already knew I wanted to speak my mind (though I haven't quite learned that trick yet). But Vonnegut gave voice to the wretched little demon under my talent and tried to kick me in the butt and make me do something. I love reading Vonnegut. Even the stuff I already read. Even when I disagree with the man, I fucking loved him.

Mel Brooks

I've always kind of secretly wished I was just half as funny as Mel Brooks.

Paul Varjak

I wanted to BE Paul Varjak because he was a) a writer, almost living the life he wanted to live - writing; and b) he was a kept man. I've wanted to be a kept man since I was a teenage boy. It's a dream, leave me alone.

I almost wanted to be Paul Varjak as much as I wanted to be "Fred." I wanted to be Fred because he got the girl. And what a girl (Audrey Hepburn in this case), crazy, psychotic, drunken (man-hating) fool with great legs and a smile that'd melt you. Wait a minute. I might've actually done that part. I hope it ended better for Fred, I mean Paul.

Charlie Chaplain

I didn't really see any Charlie Chaplain films until I was in high school, during my senior year. My Drama teacher showed us a few of them and then we improved our way through a couple of ideas brought up by the films. Watching the old silent movies, though - for the first time - in 1990, was like seeing something completely new. Actors in movies we watch now, don't do the things Chaplain did. The don't do them the way Chaplain did. I don't know if one is necessarily better than the other (if you discount the differences of medium); but Chaplain got me fired up.

Bruce Campbell

Bruce Campbell said once that he just wanted to act. He didn't care what the movie was, didn't care how bad it seemed or anything like that. He just wanted to act, man. True or not (I never bothered to look into its veracity), I've been impressed by that sentiment ever since. Plus, the man was Ash AND he was Elvis in Bubba Hotep. He can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.

Daniel Day Lewis

If Richard Harris made me want to act, Daniel Day Lewis made me want to act well. He also instilled in me this incredible fear (which I never quite got over), that I would never be good enough.

It was Lewis's earlier stuff that effected me most, though lately, I've viewed his work with this sinking sensation in the back of my soul telling me I should be on stage, or at least in front of a camera (there's that fear again, though).

Christopher Hitchens

Hitch is a writer who doesn't back down when his subject is likely to offend. He's a different kind of writer than I am, but he's an inspiration no matter what. He's also the man who presented about half the arguments that allowed me to let go of my belief in god(s).

There's more. More Heroes. More reasons why. But I can't for the life of me think of why I'm writing this. Who are your heroes? I left some out (because there are no videos of them); but who are the people that make you who you are, or make you want to be better.

Who inspires you to be more than you were yesterday? This is kind of important to think about every once in a while. Like realizing when you're happy.

Good Dream or Best Dream

I had one of those awesome dreams that makes you (me) reach for one of the dozen or more spiral notebooks strewn around my room and try to get it all down before nothing remains but a faint smile and ephemera.

I have this recurring dream about fighting vampires around this tiny old Gothic church in the middle of some city. When I say fighting vampires, I mean there are about 30 of us against what can only be described as the vampire apocalypse. Think: "every zombie movie you've ever seen" except that the zombies are smart, can turn into wolves (or bats), have psychic powers and are so much faster than you or I will ever be. It almost always sucks. Ha ha. No.

The dream (I can't adequately explain why it's not a nightmare - well, tonight I can) usually consists of anticipation. Me and the other survivors trying to scrounge weapons, secure the children, board up windows and prep ourselves for the death we all know we can only postpone a few minutes. Maybe a few hours. I often wake just as the horde of vampires come into view, striding out of the night and filling the streets like only a horde of evil bent on your utter destruction and damnation can.

This time, I was helping the preacher, I think his name was Jon. We were filling water balloons with holy water (he was blessing them as we went) and some chick said, "can I help? I don't want to just stand around."

It was Summer Glau. If you don't know who that is, I'm sorry. Father Jon (that was it for sure) and a bunch of others and I got over being star-struck, trying to figure out why she was in Chicago. I never knew the church was in Chicago before.

I think it gave us all a kind of hope - her being there. Our families weren't there, our friends and neighbors, but here was someone we almost knew. Here was someone alive. "We can do this," I said.

Later, I was trying to show her how to fire a crossbow and she said, "dude, I was a fucking terminator."

I laughed. "Okay."

We went through all the motions we usually go through. I think I've dreamt one variation of this dream or another at least a dozen times. But I felt like a schoolboy. I was arming children with sharpened stakes and locking them in a church basement and smiling at this chick who (at least in my dream) was as smart and strong and - you get the idea. Stupid.

So someone shouts, "they're here!"

We all run up to the giant, Tolkienesque doors (I can't think of any other way to describe the church's doors - like something off a church in Arda). And we're standing there. And I look over at Summer and she gives me this smirk, like she does onscreen. Kind of a cocky, "don't be stupid, we got this all day" thing. And then the horde comes into sight and the fighting starts and I lose track of her and I wake up trying to fight my way through the horde to find where the fuck she went.

Part of me wanted to save the movie star - the idea of her gave us all so much hope, part of me just wanted to be the hero, part of me wanted to be in love (I realized for the briefest moment that I was dreaming when I told myself what a dumb idea that was - falling in love with a made-up construct of my own subconscious), and part of me wanted to get laid - I might've been fully back in the dream by then, but I did fleetingly hope it would happen before I woke up. I didn't get to her.

I woke up.

There's a school of thought among the Lucid Dreamer / Out of Body Experience people that teaches Dreams are real. When you dream, your consciousness slips the bonds of this world and sojourns (however briefly) in another actual physical reality. It seems ephemeral and disconnected only because it isn't your reality. You shouldn't be able to be there. Sometimes you interact with other dreamers, sometimes with total strangers - natives of those other worlds. Often you see these as people you know just because your subconscious (sic) knows to trust them (or not to) and assigns them these appearances in your mind so that you'll associate with them more readily. I don't buy it, but hearing the theory in its entirety lends a gravity to most dreams. There are some fucked-up other realities out there. Even worse if they are really just inner realities.

I felt a distinct sense of loss when I realized I was awake. Like I blew it. Usually when I wake up from this thing, I feel bad because I know they were going to die, but I feel good that I helped give them hope. I stretched their dream-lives a few moments longer than I might have.

But I couldn't save the girl this time; and she was new. Different. Whoever she was, I hope she made it. Anyway. I wrote it all down and decided to share. Now that it's done, I still have no idea why I don't think it was a nightmare.

It had all the elements: danger, fear, sacrifice, dark and scary imagery, that disjointed feeling you get when you know something bad is about to happen. Like I said, 30 some-odd people are about to die.

But even when I wake up with my heart pounding, sweating and - sometimes - wishing I could get back to sleep and back to the fight just to die with those good people still out there fighting, somewhere in the universe, it's not a nightmare. I don't know why.

I wish I knew better how to interpret dreams (other than, "man Dave, you're fucking crazy"). Or maybe I could actually practice Lucid Dreaming so that one night, when I dream it again, I can actually fight. Make a difference. Kill a shit-ton of vampires and save the girl. Save the Day. Save the whole damn world.

Even if it isn't mine.

Maybe it isn't a nightmare because it gives me hope. I can do better. Just let me back in there.

Ninety Days Intermission: Who kicked me in the nuts!?!

I got sidelined by a slight case of being unable to do anything other than whine about my kidney stones.

I had New Art Thursday just about ready to go, and only need a rewrite on Today's free fiction. Will knock out both of them (and the accompanying video) tonight after work - provided I'm feeling up to it. This is not an easy thing to deal with.

Mittwoch 01 - Was ich nicht weiß

Es tut mir leid, mein Deutsche ist shlecht.

Video Transcript:

Guten Morgen, YouTube.

Mein Name ist David, und dieses ist deutscher Mittwoch.

Ich verstehe ein bisschen Deutsch, aber Ich kann nicht es sehr güd sprechen.

Ich möchte lernen besser, und Ich werde meine Fortschritte hier zu teilen.

Mittwochs.

Ich bin Lernen mit Michel Thomas Basic German und Rosetta Stone; aber Ich auch komme aus Frankfurt am Main. Ich sprach Deutsch als Junge.

Das ist alles.

Ich weiß es nicht mehr.

Wenn du kannst mich mit meinem deutschen Hilfe, bitte tun.

Auf Wiedersehen. Bis nächste Woche.

Gerne fünften Mai! Trinken Sie viel "Cervesa"!

Dysfunctional

Before you read this: Please don't judge me... I'm just sharing my story because people asked...

Wow... okay, I wasn't sure if I was ever going to tell anyone about this, but it's late and I'm sleep deprived so I guess I'll just write it now and regret it in the morning :/

First of all - just for some background: My mom died right when I was born (she was actually really, really hot - but this isn't about her. I guess that's fucked up to say, but whatever). I actually grew up with my dad's family, because my dad has all sorts of emotional issues and he bailed before I was born. So you can see, my childhood was really kind of messed up.

Anyway, growing up I feel like there was a lot of distance between me and my sister. When I was about 17 or 18, I first noticed that my sister was a hottie.

I don't want to go into too many details about it, but basically what happened is that I accidentally found a video she made of herself. I knew she didn't make it for me - but I thought she was so fucking beautiful that I watched it twice (probably would have watched it a hell of a lot more, except that like right around the time I found the video, all this crazy shit went down and I had to leave home (my dad's family who I was staying with got in bad trouble with the law. I never talk about it).

So... I was totally lusting after my sister at that point. She was also having bad trouble with the law. She was actually in custody when I left home.

My friend and I went to go pick her up. When I saw her that day, after seeing the video, I have to be honest, I just wanted to fuck her brains out. Looking back on it now, it's pretty messed up - but I think she had feelings for me too. She actually kissed me right after we came to get her... and it wasn't a sisterly kiss, you know? I mean, it wasn't like ridiculously sexual or anything, but it definitely wasn't sisterly.

After we left, we all went to crash with sister's friends. On the trip there, my friend sort of implied that he wanted to get with my sister, and I got a little jealous. He's a good-looking guy, and even though she was my sister - I just felt like he was competition. Not much else happened between us for a while except some maybe-sexy hugging.

Pretty much everyone in my life at that point was wanted by the government, so we all moved around a lot. I'm not saying that I'm proud of it or anything, but it was kind of an awesome time.

My friend and my sister never hooked up (I don't think) - but I thought there was some serious sexual tension going on between them. It was around that time that I got really badly hurt in an accident. It was fucked up. I almost died. But when I was in recovery, my sister came to see me, and out of the clear blue sky she started giving me this awesome, slow, passionate kiss on the lips.

Sadly (although, I guess for the best) nothing ever came of it. We spent some time apart... and I started to get really religious, so I tried not to think of her that way. It was actually going well for a long time - like I was totally over her. But I have to say, like a year or so after all that stuff went down, we were out sailing (not like a date or anthing romantic like that), and she was wearing like the hottest bikini I've ever fucking seen and it brought back all the old feelings. Sigh.

A little while later she actually wound up with my friend from before (the sexual tension guy). I can't say I was surprised.

But even after she was shacking up with my friend, there was one time we were at a party... my friend was inside and my sister and I were outside alone. It was a really intimate moment, I think something might have happened, except that I killed the mood when I told her that Darth Vader was our father and I had to go face him.

An atypical ride home

Bear with me here.

I'm a little worried for my sanity. There was a good three or four minutes on the bike ride home when I was Davik Ryn, former Jedi turned Swoop messenger - slash - data-smuggler (think Johnny Mnemonic with a broken lightsaber and "Lobot" deck stuck in his head) piloting my restored Bespin Motors JR-4 Heavy Swoop on an high-value mission - and on the run from the empire. The shadows and debris on the sidewalk, the plasteel jungle of Coruscant - buildings, speeders, aircars and other speederbikes. I was weaving in and out of traffic, down alleys and through air vents.

I was even making "vwoom - verrrr -clik- vvvvvvvvmmmmmmmmmm" sounds as I flicked intangible switches and dials on my swoop - er, bike - handlebars.

Luckily enough, I'd stopped all that by the time the Empire actually caught up to me.

Huh? Wait a minute.

Luckily enough, I'd stopped all that by the time the cop flagged me down and had me pull over for a talk. Poor pudgy bastard was waiting for me (I don't actually think he was a bastard, but I'm not smart enough to say pudgy -something else- that sounds right in my voice).

Can you imagine that? Uh, Officer Whatever'isnamewas? We need you to drive out to the island and wait next to your car for some guy who bikes by there every night at about 11:30 - 12.

That would've been my last day as a cop. Whatever'isnamewas was a better cop than me. He'll probably still be a cop tomorrow. Though I need to bring up something funny.

After I took off from work, I realized how cold it was for a bike-ride up A1A, so I pulled over and put my jeans on over my work slacks - extra armor, you know. That's actually how I got into Swoop-jockey-mode. As I was pulling up my second pair of pants, I laughed a little to myself and actually said out loud "I'm sorry officer, I do have ID; but I'm gonna' have to drop my trousers to get it."

Officer Whats'isnamewas smirked when I said it to him, and answered, "no, that's alright." He ran my license over the radio with my name and birth date and let me go. I got stopped because - a couple nights ago, some poor schmuck got creamed on his bike up on the north side of town. He told me I needed to have lights, because of a city ordinance. I could be fined up to $100.00; but not tonight. My ID came back clean and he let me go.

All in all, a pretty dull encounter; but funny to me, considering how I'd been playing smuggler on the run just eight minutes before. And for half a second as I rounded that corner, he was an imperial stormtrooper standing beside his armored transport ready to blast me to dust with his blaster rifle.

Gonna watch the new Star Trek, then go to bed. Night.

My Last Twilight Post

(Until the Breaking Dawn movie comes out)

To paraphrase, I know this is the Optimus Prime of young adult relationship-abuse vampire romance stories; and I know nothing I do or say will stop it. Or convince you that it's trash. That there are better stories out there. Better characters. Better writers. Better young adult relationship-abuse vampire romance stories. But here's my top 10 (or so) reasons why Twilight sucks, for those of you just going on instinct, and who didn't torture yourself with the actual reading.

SPOILER ALERT. There, you've been warned.

10. Vampires don't sparkle. No. That's too easy.

9. Every rule Meyer (and every better, more esteemed author who came before her) set up for vampires is broken by the end of the series.

8. Bella has no goals and no future. Her life revolves around Edward.

7. It's predictable and childish. Also, Edward is HOT, we get it.

6. Zero. Character. Development. I guess perfect characters don't really need that much development though, so - okay; I'll let that slide.

5. Flawless main characters (clumsy isn't a flaw if it's endearing and there's always someone there to catch you) result in too little actual conflict. There were actually a couple of interesting characters (Jasper and Alice, anyone?) who were ignored to focus on Mary Sue (look it up) and her perfect boyfriend.

4. If Bella is so "plain," why do so many guys fall for her within the first two chapters?

3. Bella can't do anything without Edward; and when he leaves she attempts suicide. If she leaves, he will. That's a co-dependent relationship, and it's not healthy.

2. Bella teaches women to let the men handle everything, which is pretty much a huge step backward for women everywhere, who have fought for equality.

1. "T.Pain would totally win Bella's heart and beat up Edward because he's on a boat."

And falling in love with a baby is just fucking creepy.


A lot of people are saying, "at least it's got kids reading." But it's no excuse. It's got kids reading sappy pap that has no business on my bookshelf. Here's a short list of books that are better than Stephanie Meyer's:

Not Eragon.

There you go. Go out and get you one of those amazing stories and have a blast. What? Okay, okay. For those of you looking for something along the same lines as Twilight but written by someone who wasn't a halfwit (as in "no one who reads my blog so why am I adding this link anyway?"), Amazon suggests Five books better than Twilight.

Of things that I've read and can actually recommend, the Narnia series are actually great books. If you haven't read Harry Potter, do it. Much better than Twilight. Stephen King's Dark Tower series is remarkable, there are even a few Vampires here and there. Snow Crash, Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Wheel of Time, Three Musketeers, Redwall, Dune, Neverwhere, the Scarlet Pimernel, The Color of Magic, The Last Unicorn, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass, Good Omens, American Gods, hell, even the True Blood books, Anne Rice, damn man, Dracula, any other book who's main message isn't that a regular girl cannot protect herself without her supernatural stalker hanging around - that perfect relationships contain no anger or disagreement, and that it's perfectly okay to feel so utterly attached to someone that you accept it as your fault when they hurt you utterly and irreversibly, A Game of Thrones. Like I said, not Eregon.

Les Miserables is a very hard book to read but is really quite good and one that I think a Twilight fan would really get into once Cosette shows up and starts batting her eyelashes.

Anyway. I'm done complaining about this abortion of Literature and her all to serious dalliance with pop. I'm actually very sorry that I read these books; and that's saying a lot. I read a book once in the 80's that was about giant green space bunnies who crashed their ship in the grand canyon ten-thousand years ago and it wasn't that bad. My only consolation is that I pirated the e-books instead of shelling out my all-to-limited funds for this trash.

I'm done ranting. There are probably a hundred other (maybe better?) books I could have added, and I feel like I'm just wasting bandwidth here now that I've reread this; but I wrote it and now you've read it.

Butterfly in the sky....

I hung out with some friends today. We ate some decent Chinese Food and reveled in the mediocrity that is Paul Blart: Mall Cop - a movie so stupid, and so horribly put together, that I just couldn't help myself from saying, "this movie is GREAT!"

It really was not, though. The love-intrest was cute; and there were a handful of gags that made me laugh - but not nearly so many as didn't. And most of what made me laugh was unintentional (like these total ninja badasses deciding to pull off a mall heist instead of - oh, I don't know - something that would actually make them some money?)

It's not an avoid at all costs kind of movie; but it was by no means any good.

Back home, and reading - taking a break for you, my semi-interested fans; because I needed to take a break; and I promised myself I would.

Total Recall (important link) is on in the background. It's so f'n crazy how good this movie isn't. I don't know why I can't not watch it every frickin' time it's on.

What I'm reading right now.

Well, maybe not right now; but right now in the general sense of approximately at this time, but maybe a little while ago, or in a few minutes. And not all at once. Holy crap would that get confusing.

Amanda K. Campbell is my buddy's wife. Aside from being a smoking hottie (um... wait - watch what you say, her husband hangs out here sometimes) - she's quite an entertaining writer. I was looking at her LiveJournal today. I love her tags organization.

Dead Until Dark is the first of the Sookie Stackhouse books - the Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 1, to be exact. Since the True Blood series is so much more fun than that Twilight Abortion (seriously, what do you people see in that shit?), I thought these would be a better read than whatever literary swill Stephenie Meyer managed to vomit out onto the page.

That's unfair. I have a massive ego; and I get really touchy when people that ego makes me believe couldn't hold a candle, are doing so much better than I am primarily because I haven't got off my ass and done it yet. Really, despite what it says about people on the whole, I wish her all the best.

Should I be striving to attain mediocrity so that I'll make the money?

Unlimited Power - Anthony Robbins. It's amazing to me how much of his stuff consists of things we already know, but just haven't acted on. And I'm noticing - the more I act on these things, the more useful they seem, even if they're not going to make my life a fairy tale.

Garfield Minus Garfield is one of the best web comics out there. It's on my daily check for an update list along with XKCD, Penny Arcade, Dinosaur Comics, The Adventures of Dr McNinja, VG Cats, Sinfest (quite possibly the greatest comic of all evers), The Perry Bible Fellowship (which doesn't really update, but hit the Random link), 6 or 7 Popes, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Alien Loves Predator, and Russell's Teapot (which hasn't updated in Years; but is well worth the read unless you're a christian).

The Equinox, Volume 1 Number 1. I'm actually re-reading this... again. You cannot comprehend how difficult it is to kneel (or even sit) perfectly still for an hour or more until you've actually tried it. I am regularly tempted of late to say it's just impossible. But The Magic Glasses is really good story.

Okay... I'm done now. Gaming calls - and I am it's bitch. I'm also reading the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Saga Edition. I wonder if the guys would be interested in playing a party of droids. How about a Hard-Wired Heroes Campaign? Droid Pirates? I really think I've got a good beginning, middle & end for that idea. Hey now! Gotsta go-

I Wanna...

I want to live in New Zealand for at least a year.

Ever since I saw the first behind the scenes special about Xena (it might have been Hercules); I've wanted to travel to New Zealand. And after all that extra crap on the Super-Awesome-Extra-Long Lord of the Rings DVDs (You know - the one with about 3 years worth of special features) - forget about it.

I want to go there and eat the food and jump off the cliffs and swim in the water and skydive and hang-glide and meet a half-dozen hot Kiwi babes (or just one perfect one).

I want to have my books turned into a movie or tv-show and then reap the benefits of the books' re-release.

Even though it probably means you have to go through this long, looong period of obscurity or whatever, that must be - just - wow. What kind of dance do you suppose Charlaine Harris did when she found out her books were being optioned by HBO?

I want to use my brain to surf the internet (but I don't want to be paralyzed to do it).

Just... I mean - with those contact lenses that have little displays on them (like overlays on your vision) and bluetooth-like advances, coupled with this technology - we're all going to be wired all the time and it's going to be awesome. I can't wait. We're all going to be neuromancers in a post-whatever cyberpunk dystopia. Or utopia if you happen to be a sci-fi geek with enough money for the wetware. :P

I want to meet the perfect woman.

My ideal mate is a gamer, she's fit (or trying to be), she's a little bit goofy, much smarter than me (okay, that's not too difficult), she's a vegan (or at least a veggie), as easy-going spiritually & religiously as I am, and not too hung up on the fact that my primary aspiration in life is to be a writer (which probably means I will be broke for a good long while). She also shouldn't mind my horrible taste in movies.

I want to keep going, but I have to go to work.

(also, Lucy Lawless was rockin' that leather bikini, wasn't she?)