I Will Destroy You!

Okay, so it's ethics bowl time, come tomorrow afternoon. This is not one that I am particularly looking forward to, as it will be the first bowl where I don't have a crew of hardened philosophy vets to back me up, and just hang around with in general. Frustrating, that. At any rate, I hope it goes well. Hell, I don't have any real drinking buddies to hang out with this time.

Yesterday was coffee with the woman. It was...interesting. One thing that I have realized is that she is completely, totally, and utterly oblivious to the way in which she affects my life. For instance, she mentioned how she liked the way I am "angry, bitter, and sarcastic." It's like punching a guy in the face, and telling him, "I like the way you're all black and blue around the eye, and that blood gushing out of your temple? Wow! It's so distinctively you! I wouldn't have you any other way!" Well thanks alot! This is some of that good ol' fashioned bitter and cynical sarcasm that you seem to like so much! The weird thing was that other than this minor awkwardness, it was actually quite pleasant. The thing was, this remark just stung so much that as I was driving home, I couldn't help but brood over it, and replay it within my mind. At any rate, it fed a burning rage within me.

After dinner that evening, I went over to Ryan and Cassie's for some BESM/RIFTs. It was quite good. The chance to play with them and Trevor helped take my mind off the inferno brewing within. Let's just say that giant Russian Cyborgs are good.

Today was absolutely shitty, though. It started off with me being late to Ideas. We weren't really doing much, so it wasn't really a loss, but it only went downhill from there. I then decided to spend some time writing some of my papers, namely my 60's research paper and my Enlightenment paper. At 11, I was to meet with my partner for stage combat to practice. He didn't show, damn the man. So there I was, waiting, and thinking, I just wasted time that I could have used to do something productive, but you just had to forget. So I went and got lunch, and then headed off to LS. It wasn't horrid, but it wasn't particularly memorable, either. After that, it was more paper-writing. I then went home, got dinner, and went to Bible study...only to discover that I had been stood up once again. Twice in one day. Seriously, this pisses me off. I called the kids up and told them that there was Bible study. I got at least one confirmed "Yes, I'll be there" and still nobody showed. Seriously, if they aren't going to be there, they should just fucking say so. It's not like they're going to hurt my feelings. I would rather know ahead of time that I don't have to show up, and then actually do something productive besides wait for people who aren't going to be there. My wrath at this point is palpable, and utterly star-destroying. The folks at the ethics bowl won't know what hit them. The power of the Dark Side is strong in me, and I plan to give them the logical smack-down that many of them (I'm talking about you, Sophists) so richly deserve.

Conclusion: Will is angry. Pissed. Miffed. Put out. Raging. Wrathful. Irked. Annoyed. Ticked off. Cheesed. And everything in between. Seriously, no patience for crap right now.

WTF, Mates?

It's been an odd week. Monday sucked (sickness). Tuesday sucked (recovering from sickness). Hopefully today won't suck, as I have a coffee date this afternoon. Plus, there might be some BESM action later on. Nobody really knows for sure. At any rate, that's the mundane details of my life, so shut up and quit asking, damnit!

On to more important things. I recently stumbled upon a piece of writing that I have to say qualifies as some of the worst crap I've ever read. A sample line: "The salmon swim, while the boy cries, and Rwanda dies." The fuck? As I was reading this pile of excrement, I couldn't help but feel like each successive line was in fact the worst line I had ever read. It got exponentially more excremental as it went on. When a story includes the line "WHY are you RUSHING? NOTICE ME!", it's never a good sign. Ever. Now, I'm not claiming to be a good fiction writer, because I'm not. However, it doesn't take a good writer to recognize a bad one, and let me tell you, it was as if an albatross just shat upon a keyboard, and this was the result. Actually, I take that back. That might actually be better. At least then, it could be blamed upon the defecation habits of a sea-bird, as opposed to an honest-to-God human being. This was like the William Hung of the literary world. I had to go rinse my eyes out with bleach just to disinfect them.

Okay, now that it's out of my system, I feel better. In other news, Ethics Bowl is this weekend. It should be...interesting. My team consists of Miranda, Jeff Hunter, some girl I don't know, and myself. I have mixed feelings about this group, as the two newbs are unknown quantities. Jeff seems to think he can carry this team, in spite of his self-admitted ignorance of philosophy. He obviously hasn't seen Miranda go at it, and he doesn't know what we're up against. Both Miranda and I have looked upon the face of the enemy, and we know it well. They aren't ready, I will say that much. The power of the Dark Side will be needed for this one, that much I am sure of.

Well, that just about sums up everything I'm going through right now. I'll leave you with a few comic book suggestions:
1. Age of Apocalypse (see previous post)
2. Fables (all the fairy-tale characters are driven out of their worlds by the mysterious adversary, and forced to form an exile community in contemporary New York City)
3. BPRD

Like A Cat

This weekend has treated me fairly well, all things considered. Friday night, I was forced to forgo the RIFTS/BESM campaign to support Renee in her performance of Godspell. I will be honest, I wasn't especially looking forward to it, as I am not really a fan of musicals in general. I never have been, and probably never will be. I understand and respect that some people like them, but the fact remains that they rub me the wrong way. I don't know if it's the random outbursts of singing or what, but somehow, characters in musicals are always more distant to me than characters in a non-musical production. That said, however, I did actually derive quite a bit of enjoyment out of the production. The cast was strong, and the production design was quite good. While the first act was a little slow and disjointed for my tastes, the second act clipped along at a fever pitch, with just the right amount of darkness in it for me to take pleasure in it. On the whole, I recommend Whitworth College's production of Godspell to just about anybody who enjoys a good show. Just don't expect most of the characters outside of Jesus and Judas to be anything other than cyphers.

Saturday rolled around, and that meant some serious D20 action. The whole crew was over today (Ipps, G-fate, SmkViper, winterbc, Codemonk, Jarkel, Rinakai, and Gemedet), so we had the full complement. Saturday's mission was sort of a turning point in many ways, as it was the first mission wherein parts of it were contributed by virtue of the democratic process. That's right, 3 out of 8 people voted in my poll over at Anything Binary, which dictated the course of the mission, the first of a sort of two-parter to be continued the week after next. Let's just say that the group's penchant for piracy just found a new outlet.

Other news: I picked up Volume 1 of Marvel's epic Age of Apocalypse, and it is quite frankly awesome. The only problem was that Vol. 1 is a bit heavy on Blink and X-Man, but light on the rest of the AoA X-men (Magneto, Weapon X, Gambit, Colossus, Sabertooth, Wild Child, Sunfire, Rogue, Mystique, Shadowcat, Jean Grey). Also, the Big A himself is mostly in the background, while his henchmen Sinister, Cyclops, Holocaust, Havoc, and McCoy act as the primary antagonists. For those of you not in the know, AoA was a year-spanning event that Marvel put together in 1995, wherein Professor X's son, Legion, travels back in time to kill Magneto before he could become a threat (while he and the professor were friends, in other words). However, the plan goes awry when the professor takes Legion's bullet for Magneto. As a result, Mags never becomes a terrorist mastermind, but rather takes up Professor X's goal of peaceful human/mutant co-existance. However, Magneto's isolationist tendencies allow Apocalypse to take over most of the world, establishing an empire wherein on the strongest survive and the weak are culled. As Magneto's X-Men face these perils, it becomes clear that they are forced to be more ruthless, more gritty, and more grim than their mainline continuity counterparts. It's a dark story, but it's also more complex, and allows for readers to jump on without having to go through Marvel's disastrous "Onslaught" stuff to understand anything. Plus, it's just damned cool.

Well, that's really all I can think of that warrants coverage on ye olde site. Note also that Lars has updated the Life of Wyma, so go check that out.