This is absolutely hillarious.

Googlemaps version of the Apple Campus (ie, what the Apple Campus looks like from Space.)

Virtual Earth’s (ie, Microsoft’s) vision of the same area.

I submit this with no further comment.

Writing because I feel partly like writing. Mostly its just to get my fingers used to working the keys. I’ve been typing a lot lately, but not with any real amount of purpose. I’m DMing Planescape as well as Starbound, and I’m writing a lot of stuff for D&D but I haven’t done any writing of any given consequence. It means that I haven’t worked on my webpage, or on any of the various projects I had going when I left school.

I’m vacationing for sure.

I did get a series of ideas for stories though, mostly from talking to Sarah. One about pirates and one I thought of calling Schrodinger’s Kid. I think I’ll write Schrodinger’s Kid, actually. As to the pirates, well, that was just a funny idea that ran through my head in the shower one day about a failed pirate who failed at the piracy life because he didn’t have a proper pirate name.

Schrodinger’s Kid… well, if you can’t guess by the name I won’t explain it here.

I’ve also started thinking about Noir again. I like the story, even if where I originally wanted to take it was a bit contrived. The problem is, originally I was going to do a three part run (Noir: Penumbral, Noir: Athena, and Noir: Tenebrous) with different characters in the first two and them finally meeting up in the last to bring everyone to justice. Except I have ideas for Noir: Athena that I want to use in Penumbral but it’s too late to introduce the characters in Penumbral for Athena.

Actually, I think I may well start Athena ahead of schedule, and give people a bit of a glimpse as to what’s really going on with Angels and Daemon. Something to think about. (Athena would be an entirely different sort of story. It’s Tom Clancy spy fiction, not gritty detective novel – hence the two different runs.)

And then I got an idea for another series about a crime fighter simply called The Fear. Not sure where I got the idea, just sort of worked on it silently for the past few days.

And I want to write a script for a King Arthur movie, but based on the legends as opposed to the archaeological findings. I also want to do this with the Odyssea :). Am I the only one who likes the classics to remain the way they were written? Admittedly, the movie Troy was good, very well executed.

Also, God of War rocks. Kratos is the boss. Seriously.

A few interesting quotes from the folks at last night’s session:

“Never met a cranky elf before.” – Marius Navine to Kiera, after being arrested for murder.

“Keep that up and I might stick around to watch your back.” – Kiera, elven rogue.
“I’ve seen what you do to people’s backs.” – Marius Navine, human sorcerer who has seen the rogue use sneak attack to murder a Mercykiller.

“I must say, this is the worst city it has ever been my misfortune to occupy.” – Kiera.  A few hours later, she found out she was headed for the Blood War.

I love DMing, and I love DMing for Planescape.  If you don’t like it - pike it, berk.  The setting, you see, is everything.  Every different setting, every different game, has an attitude to it, a sort of overall feel.  Forgotten Realms games tend to be flavored in high fantasy, and their games have a sort of epic “Save the world!” feel to them traditional to fantasy novels (I dislike the Realms for this and many other reasons).  Greyhawk has a highly politicized climate, drawin in the minutiae of the game, it’s more medieval than fantasy.  Mystara found a nice balance between the two, incorporating the magic into the politics.  Eberron is noir-pulp mixed into a fantasy setting, which – anyone who knows me knows – is an idea I’d be all over.

But Planescape… Planescape’s special.  Planescape is fantasy, because it’s Dungeons & Dragons.  Planescape is noir, because it’s dark, it’s gritty, and the lines between good and evil are blurred to the point where you’re not really ever sure where you stand.  Planescape is political – with 15 factions trying to play for the city of Sigil, each with their own agendas, beliefs, and metehods, it can’t help but be political.  Planescape is high fantasy, as it takes place at the top of an infinite Spire in the center of the multiverse, in the inside face of the torus-shaped city of Sigil.

But it lacks the fancy-feel of the high fantasy game, the minute nuances of the political game, the One-Good-Man of the noir campaign.  It could certainly have all of these elements, and indeed should have all of these elements.  But the Planescape feel is about the individual.  It’s about how people cope in a setting where Belief is everything, where what you think and how you act may very well change the nature of the plane where you currently are.

It’s also just plain weird.  And that’s an idea I can really get behind.

Earlier this evening I found myself sitting alone at a table in Subway looking at a bunch of high school kids enjoying a Saturday night out at the movies. I could tell they were in high school because they had that air of self-importance which only being in the social battlefield of high school can instill upon the soul. College is a tempering experience – high school is the fire that forged the metal to be tempered.

But these kids carried themselves with that spirit of uniqueness, that esprit de corp which speaks of uniformity and camarederie. And I sat there looking back upon my life, as my eyes crossed the room to see my brother and aunt buying their sandwiches from the Subway people, and looking in upon myself as the lone individual sitting at a Subway contemplating… life.

It was, in effect, a lot like how I used to be. Now, this really does come as a surprise to me. Not because I used to be this way. But because I used to be this way. I’ve always been a lone walker.

I remember a time when there was friendship. I don’t mean to say that I don’t have friends now. The friends I have now, though, are very much different than the friends I had then. Back then we all walked with that air of self-importance. We were the only thing in the universe. We were in high school. Not to imply that made us in any way cool. But the very fact that we had come to the pinnacle of our required education… somehow that made us special. It gave us a sense of purpose, a sense of identity.

And don’t make the mistake of confusing this with any sort of school spirit. I am very much against the idea of school spirit – much the same way I’m against the idea of patriotism. But it was an identity, a general identity, which we could use to identify ourselves.

We were a pack. It’s about the closest parallel I can currently come up with. We were a pack. As always there were alphas and there was everyone else. I think, ultimately, the reason I was a loner was because I was an alpha who didn’t want the responsibility or the recognition of actually being an alpha. So I naturally failed to get along with the system – so the system, around me, broke down.

But I digress, inasmuch as one can digress from one’s own ruminations.

I remember those days when we were a pack. And I suddenly felt very lonely. It was like a cold, bitter wind had washed across my very core, chilling my bones. I realized, not for the first time, that I am as a wolf without his pack.

Later, in conversation with Sarah I said I was a torn man. In effect, that’s exactly right. My universe, you see, consists of two entirely different, entirely separate realities. One is the reality of Bloomington. That’s where my pack currently is. To be fair, that pack was temporary. Even now, it begins to scatter. Soon there shall be nothing left but me again. The second reality is that of Puerto Rico.

I may well be conflicted. I’m not sure I belong in that second reality anymore. Emotionally speaking, I’m aware I have my family here — my mother, father, brother, aunts, grandparents, more cousins than I can name or even remember. And to an effect they remain an integral factor of my being. Still, I don’t think I belong here. The more I dwell on the subject the more I realize how right that conclusion has become.

That point hadn’t even registered until I was sitting in the car. My brother was belting out the words to a ballad, and he was egging me on to join him. And I simply didn’t trust him enough to sing. Trust isn’t exactly the right word. Comfort. I wasn’t comfortable around my own family. I don’t even remember a point where I was. And I have no idea why. Is one born comfortable in their own family? Is comfort to be an assumed concept?

I was comfortable around my pack. But they’re all gone now, to parts unknown. I’m not talking about the Bloomington pack either. I mean the one here at home. I’m not comfortable with the idea of going out or inviting people over. The idea of picking up the phone and dialing someone’s number and saying “hey, let’s hang out” doesn’t stick in my head as a particularly good one – because it’s not the same.

A part of me wants that magic back. That feeling of self-importance. That somehow we mattered more than anything else. Just for one night.

But the pack is gone.

This is quite funny:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/jonnynexus/175239.html