An upswing

CATERPILLAR WANTS ME TO INTERVIEW FOR AN INTERNSHIP, HOLY SHIT.

That's about it. That was pretty cool, though.
I'm actually in contact with sororities! It helps stuff with this whole Greek Sing biz.
Two tests Friday.
No game Saturday, bro-hood event.
Yeah. What a week.

Session on Saturday

We ran our second session, and things are going excellently. I held true to my promise of lethality, and so far, one limb has been blown off already. It won't get any nicer...but it'll be a lot of fun. I can't really say more, due to the sensitivity of the plot. But I'll reveal something after a bit of resolution.

Stuff, stuff, and more stuff.

I was up late last night. But last night did involve belly-dancing, and some very good Turkish coffee. The coffee may explain being up late.
All's well in the world of oy, with just one piece of news from Wednesday night.
Dave is now my little, which is totally and utterly amazing. That is all.

So, here's my idea

I base writing on my life. It's how I do it. Right now, I sometimes wish my life was simple. Not necessarily simple in execution, but straightforward in goal, rather than having conflicting physical, emotional and interpersonal desires turning my whole existence into a scheduling nightmare. No, just one simple goal I can work on at a time. So here comes the caricature:

Lance is a college student, plagued by academic pressure and a failing relationship with his old high school girlfriend. His perspective on life is mutilated forever when he falls into an alternate dimension, dealing with drug-dealing panda bears and a large knitting-oriented crime syndicate to fulfill his ultimate quest: pick up a bag of Cheetos.

Yeah, I'm crazy. But what do you think?

Sunday

We ran on Sunday. I had the plan for the intro, and modified it because some people were late. We never actually got to my planned intro...I threw something to make the interim interesting, and now I have two or three really chunky plotlines to look at. One is totally out there, one is lifted straight from a corpbook, and oh yeah, the original plot I had in mind. I don't know why Cyberpunk as a setting makes it that much easier for me to roll and improvise, but it feels like I got my groove back, which is so fucking cool. This week is almost as crazy as rush was, with the TOC and all, but I'll hopefully find some time to write later. Unfortunately, the earliest I really have available is Thursday...before that, my free time is going pretty much exclusively to homework, to make up for the lost time spent tonight and tomorrow with the TOC. I'm not sure how far in advance I need, but at least I know if I'm caught off-guard, I can roll with it. Eventually, it'll become very convoluted and somehow involve every single character in some sordid and highly unlikely conspiracy theory. THAT'D BE SO COOL. But yeah. TOC. Tomorrow = Crazy.

Amazing

We pledged 17 biddees tonight. And an 18th is pledging, just had a conflict and couldn't be at the ceremony.
This gives us the largest pledge class on the frat quad...well, not the largest, but one of the largest.
And the largest pledge class in our chapter's history...by four. Minimum.
Allow me to say holy shit.
Holy shit.
Rush may have completely mind-consuming, mentally and physically draining, and the busiest two weeks since my freshman orientation, but it was so, so, worth it.
We are amazing.

VNV Nation - Beloved

it's colder than before
the seasons took all they had come for
now winter dances here
it seems so fitting don't you think?
to dress the ground in white
and grey

it's so quiet I can hear
my thoughts touching every second
that I spent waiting for you
circumstances afford me
no second chance to tell you
how much I've missed you

my beloved do you know
when the warm wind comes again
another year will start to pass
and please don't ask me why I'm here
something deeper brought me
than a need to remember

we were once young and blessed with wings
no heights could keeps us from their reach
no sacred place we did not soar
still greater things burned within us
I don't regret the choices that I've made
I know you feel the same

my beloved do you know
how many times I stared at clouds
thinking that I saw you there
these are feelings that do not pass so easily
I can't forget what we claimed was ours

moments lost though time remains
I am so proud of what we were
no pain remains, no feeling
eternity awaits
grant me wings that I might fly
my restless soul is longing
no pain remains, no feeling
eternity awaits

The music community can be very divisive on electronic music, and even I have not entirely grasped the subtle distinctions between some of these subgenres (so apparently Front 242 is both industrial and EBM...). But these guys are so fuckin' awesome. I love their music.

Well then.

So, apparently, I'm quotable now. I'm flattered.

Last night was a portent to what the whole weekend holds, namely staying up to ungodly hours in the night time and reveling in sleep deprivation. Oh boy. On the good side, we have a session planned for tomorrow...my intro currently is a little contrived, but I have a good feeling about the whole thing. I need to plan out a bit more, but once everything is in place, I have a feeling it will work out.
I had one of my guys request higher lethality...hoo boy, this is gonna be fun.

And now, going into the weekend, I will reference the great MC5:
"Kick out the jams, Motherfuckers!"
That is an amazing album, I'll just say.

Something weird

So, you know when you have a dream, and all sorts of amazing and awesome stuff occurs. You wake up, and think, "damn, I wish that actually happened". Well, last night, I had a cold, and sleeping was kind of difficult. I woke up in a haze, with memories of all this awesome stuff that had happened, and thought it was a really amazing dream.

And then it hit me.

All that awesome stuff actually happened, last night.
It was pretty sweet. Looks like colds are good for something, after all.

The one you've all been waiting for

So, I'm thinking about this 2020 jazz. I now have an idea to start: and a setting:

Centropolis makes Night City look downright independent. The city was founded in 2016 by a cooperative of Petrochem, Militech, MA&F, and EBM. It is very corporate, indeed, and formed on a grid very similar to Chicago’s. Centropolis redistributes displaced populations from the fallen cities of St.Louis, Minneapolis, and Indianapolis, and the large refugee influx became very hard to control. Indeed, Centropolis still has more sheen than Night City, but the tarnish that has now covered it is hard to ignore. The hard-nosed corporate controlled schooling and police keep the place unnaturally quiet, but the incidents have been creeping up steadily. There are cameras mounted all over, and as they got torn down, police got better at concealing them and armoring them. Some cameras conceal terminals where automatic weapons fire will cover a swath within the camera’s viewing angle, but these only exist on private property, or at least that's what they say. Due to the massive prevalence of electronic security, there are large cadres of people who go about their daily business, legitimate or not, wearing ski masks, just so the cameras can’t ID them.

At this point, I want to start mapping out in detail a few places...A Petrochem office or two, their helipad, the Petrochem Place subway station, some apartments, and some other locations as they come up. To clarify upon a previous inquiry, this setting will have room for any sort of character type. I'm building it from the ground up, and whatever situations occur, they will influence how the city is built outward. This also has a very important implication I want to make clear.

The first session will involve, within the first hour or so, a very obvious hook that will be dangled in front of the players. I mean, brutally so. From there on out, it's hands off. I have a story planned, but each player's role in it can differ. I expect each person to have their own agendas. I expect it to get interesting. I will not punish any in-character behavior, save that which is aberrant (as in, not actually in-character). We're all grown-ups now, so I am not holding anyone to the "teamwork all for one" standards of D&D style roleplaying. That being said, we are grown-ups, and PKing or backstabbing for the fun of it does not make it fun for everyone else. Also, I have ways to be mean beyond your wildest nightmares.

Anyone having played 2020, or even perused the setting knows there are lots of toys for killing with abandon. There is lots to be bought with ludicrous amounts of money, and lots of ways to earn it. This system is, despite what you may think, still designed after predictions of the real world, albeit crazily nihilistic ones. I expect this campaign to be mixed-media...still very story and drama influenced, but with flexibility to allow for some kickassery when necessary (especially at the beginning). Comment, email me...tell me something. I want to know what you all think of this.

Oh how I hate to get up in the morning

I went for a short run this morning. I'm not sure how long it was...I circumnavigated campus, went down into Oakland, and came back...somewhere between 2-3 miles. Judging from my pace, I'd say somewhere upwards of 2.5. It was a good run, and the resulting shower was excellent as well. I hope I'll get back into the whole running thing...but I know I'm not good at keeping these things up. And extra hour of sleep is way to tempting.

I have some ideas for this campaign, but the story line in its entirety will most likely come out of the consequences of the first two or three sessions. I'm going to start mapping out places in 9-block squares. Hopefully, the whole set of situations will be determined, because right now, I only have two areas to plot: the Ward, and the Petrochem office. But with the amount of actual work I have to do (read: school), that may be all I can tackle right now. Ah well. One more week of Rush, then cooling down.

I love this guy

Jello Biafra.

Islamic Speed Metal: Magnum Jihad

Need I say anything else.

I'm going to condense this

Pretty much everything in the world going on right now that I am at least peripherally aware of can be boiled down to one simple syllable:

Oy.

In other news, we did manage to meet for a bit yesterday, and now it appears that we're ready to start playing. Whether I'll have the time to either meet or write in preparation for a meeting this weekend is a bit questionable. Ah well.

I also have a job interview on Tuesday. How cool is that.

Gym Class Heroes - Cupids Chokehold

The Papercut Chronicles
feat. Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy
Ba ba da da
Ba ba da da
Ba ba da da
Ba ba da da
Ba ba da da

Take a look at my girlfriend
She's the only one i got ba ba da da
Not much of a girlfriend
I never seem to get a lot ba ba da da, ba ba da da

It's been some time since we last spoke
This is gonna sound like a bad joke
But momma i fell in love again
It's safe to say i have a new girlfriend

And i know it sounds so old
But cupid got me in a chokehold
And i'm afraid i might give in
Towels on the mat my white flag is wavin'

I mean she even cooks me pancakes
And alka seltzer when my tummy aches
If that ain't love then i don't know what love is

We even got a secret handshake
And she loves the music that my band makes
I know i'm young but if i had to choose her or the sun
I'd be one nocturnal son of a gun

ba ba da da, ba ba da da

Take a look at my girlfriend
She's the only one i got ba ba da da
Not much of a girlfriend
I never seem to get a lot ba ba da da, ba ba da da

Take a look at my girlfriend
She's the only one i got ba ba da da
Not much of a girlfriend
I never seem to get a lot ba ba da da, ba ba da da

It's been awhile since we talked last and i'm tryin' hard not to talk fast
But dad i'm finally thinkin' i may have found the one
Type of girl that will make you way proud of your son

And i know you heard the last song about the girls that didn't last long
But i promise this is on a whole new plane
I can tell by the way she says my name ba ba da da

I love the way she calls my phone
She even got her very own ringtone
If that ain't love then i don't know what love is ba ba da da

It's gonna be a long drive home but i know as soon as i arrive home
And i open the door take off my coat and throw my bag on the floor
She'll be back in my arms into my arms once more for sure

Take a look at my girlfriend
She's the only one i got ba ba da da
Not much of a girlfriend
I never seem to get a lot ba ba da da, ba ba da da

She's got a smile that would make the most senile
Annoying old man bite his tongue
I'm not done
She's got eyes comparable to sunrise
And it doesn't stop there
Man i swear
She's got porcelain skin of course she's a ten
And now she's even got her own song
But movin' on
She's got the cutest laugh i ever heard
And we can be on the phone for three hours
Not sayin' one word
And i would still cherish every moment
And when i start to build my future she's the main component
Call it dumb call it luck call it love or whatever you call it but
Everywhere i go i keep her picture in my wallet like you

Take a look at my girlfriend
She's the only one i got ba ba da da
Not much of a girlfriend
I never seem to get a lot ba ba da da, ba ba da da

Take a look at my girlfriend
She's the only one i got ba ba da da
Not much of a girlfriend
I never seem to get a lot ba ba da da, ba ba da da

My second indie rap find after Automato: The Gym Class Heroes. Check them out.

Clean-up

From last night:
Did you know caffeine is a mood-altering drug? I do now. The trend, to me at least, is impossible to ignore.
From earlier:
So facebook put up some new privacy controls...good on them, but they need to work on the clutter issue a bit more too.

Let me tell you a little sweet something about "The Cards"

Quick note: I am sleep-deprived. Again. Because Rush is happening. And going very well. Which saps at my health, because I stay up late. Again. Just as an advance warning.

And now, on to the purpose of this ditty.

Events unfold in life in such a way that you could neither plan for them, nor would you want to. It all happens in a way which is equally comforting and terrifying, and equally blissful and agonizing, simply due to the way "the cards" are dealt. Now, I will continue in the spirit of beating to death a metaphor when someone uses it in a way I don't like.
"The cards" dealt in life are, quite simply, never going to make a full hand. There is no turn or river, a good deal of people are fucking lucky to get a flop. To deobfuscate that slightly, most of the opportunities you wish you had, you absolutely never will.
So that being said, I've been dealt a straight flush. The power of institutional legitimacy (obtuse metaphor for college education), the ability to pursue my dream, and the actual hope of financial independence by 25 or so are things most people never get the chance to have, as much as many try to delude themselves. I am among a lucky, lucky few.
Everything else, all those details and somethings, are just that. I need to do a much better job at ignoring them, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'll be able to. Turn to the future, turn too slow. Turn to the past, you're the bad guy again. Not somewhere I'd go back.
I'm not single-minded enough for this...I'm unable to just set my blinders on and sit in my little academic dreamworld, with force diagrams and line drawings of camshafts and rocker arms flying through my sedate head. There are other people here, and it's turning into one discouragement after another. Nothing's wrong, per se...but that's even worse, because there's nothing to correct.
If you take a look at your life, and at everything you have right now, chances are, by the time you're out of college, it's all gone, and replaced with something completely different. And that's how it's supposed to be.
Too much stress on bullshit. I need to cut back on the caffeine.

A lovely example of redundancy

So, I found the problem:

You need to save each character record to a new workbook before saving the database...well, now I know. Excel blows me. But at least now it works.

Facebook: I may as well

A comment on the changes to Facebook:
Yeah, I saw the feed thing, and thought, "wow, a bit on the detailed side." But my first reaction to the feed was "oh cool, now I now if people have accepted my friend requests, and no longer have to pore over a profile to figure out what they've updated." If I don't want to look at it, it collapses. That, by the way, was an excellent idea and implementation. Also, in response to the stalker issue, I say this. I went into facebook's privacy settings. You can restrict who sees any of your information...you can have it so you don't even show up on their searches, if you so desire. So if people are really concerned, they can adjust their privacy settings. I adjusted it so that no one can see my cell number unless I have them as a friend. Also, no one outside of my networks can read my profile. Other than that, I don't care, because everything else I post is public domain anyway (within CMU, you can search an index of every student email, and cross-reference it with a name). My most provocative photo is probably a photo of my Celica's shift knob. My wall is filled with inane greetings and birthday spam. My notes are redirected from Blogger, which is, wait, oh yeah...publically listed and indexed on Google. So...yeah. My privacy is not at stake. I don't advertise my illegal behavior (wait, what illegal behavior?), and I frankly am not that interesting. So yeah. For those of you annoyed, I recommend pressing the little drop-down triangle, and collapsing the thing. Not terribly difficult. For the rest of us RSS-heads, you can be thankful that checking facebook no longer has to be an hours-long experience. Or pissed, if you needed a way to kill time. I recommend Freecell, personally.

We have returned

I met my group for some Cyberpunk last night. We started creating characters, and it's looking very good...this campaign will be very interesting, to say the least.

I've been trying to use this Excel database for the characters...it is frustrating to use, though it does do what I need it to do...after I hit it mentally. Oy.

I have a few campaign ideas, though I'm unsure what I'm going to do quite yet. When I have finished characters in front of me, I'll make a more hard and fast decision. I'm going to try and run this game with more attention to detail, and also more development. My plan right now is to build up small areas, and then build up the city from there. I may do Boston...but I'm unsure. The area I'm going to start with will be no larger than 18 city blocks...connected by subways. I'll look at the city map, and start building some ideas up. If I have more detailed maps, it's going to encourage a much better utilization of the city resources I have at my fingertips. Well, we'll see what happens.

So Tired...

So yeah. It was a math mistake. It happens. No worries.

Tonight can be boiled down to this:

Techno version of Hava Nagila.



Brilliant.


I'll spare you the emo bullshit beyond that.

I may game tomorrow, thank God.

So I was doing some math...

So, yeah. September is the ninth month of the year. Number nine. If you are entering into the tenth month of something, in September, that means that it started in December. Logical, right? Makes sense to me. However, by December, there was something that hadn't happened yet...so someone made a serious mistake. Either with their math, or with something else.


That was weird and cryptic.

So yeah. For ten bucks, I purchased a webcam off of misc.market, for the intention of using it with Skype. So yeah, as if I don't already look at myself in mirrors too often, now I can do it without ever leaving my desk. And I can make embarassing video of myself as well. Woo.

From Hillel

Do not walk in front of me as I may not follow,
Do not walk behind me as I may not lead.
Instead walk beside me, and we can be friends
As we walk together in the land of HaShem.

Yeah. Didn't mention I was ever the slightest bit religious, now did I.

And for the hell of it

Happy 200th post. Holy shit.

Blogger Beta

I've done some cleaning as a result of the new Blogger Beta. Has some cool new stuff, and I no longer have to go straight into the HTML to add third-party content, which is nice. The WYSIWYG editor is nearly the same, though now there is tagging, which I rarely use (though hey, here's an excuse to start, right? Whatever. I suppose it's good stuff...and I got a Google account out of the whole jazz too.

Friday

It's Friday. I have three classes, And I actually get a break for lunch.
I will meet up with my group on Sunday. There is a chance of starting up a campaign, and the prospect of that is very exciting.

It's been an odd week, and next week will be even odder, with me needing to stay up insane hours to ensure I observe all traffic flow through this house. Damn Rush.
I've realized people have issues. Woo. Things that I find to be, in this order, absolutely counterintuitive, and completely intolerable. Because people are stupid. Woo.
I may be a victim of the three-wall bang attack this weekend. I am not looking forward to this, hilarious as it may be.

I'm going to go eat breakfast. Because Honey Bunches of Oats taste good, and there's no sense in being bitter at a person so superficial they never would have noticed unless you knocked them out and postered it to their face. What? Me resentful? Nah...
I'm withdrawing from this dating thing. It's so fucking blah.

But in better news, I've gathered my campaign material...the maps from the MBTA website are indeed pretty sweet. I may see if there are similar system maps for Pittsburgh as well. The campaign has not been very thoroughly planned yet, but I have a lot of ideas.