Posts (page 2)
Originally published at Sasha's Den of Iniquity. You can comment here or there.
Work has been really draining me this week. I have a cold, see, but there's just too damn much stuff to do. As my boss said, we're trying to finish 4 months of roofing in 6 weeks. The good news, though, I'm about -> < - this close to getting a raise. Today marked six months at the job and JE (the boss I work most closely with, as opposed to my other boss JW) said "Okay, I'm gonna talk to JW and get you taken care of. I don't want you going anywhere else." That was with out me actually asking for more money.
On Saturday, though two of four players were unable to make it, I started off my GURPS 4th Ed. campaign based on Kenneth Hite's "The Madness Dossier" from GURPS Horror, 3rd Ed. While investigating a possible Anunnakku irruption in the Welsh village of Llanddewi Brefi, the PCs found a strange gemstone that revealed a terrible future. A future in which Jerry's character was shot four times by an unknown assailant. Luckily they have back-up on the way. I can only hope my Unknown Armies game on the 28th goes as well.
TV has also been treating me well recently. While I was very disappointed by "Jericho" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" has been seeming to flail a bit (I'm still pulling for it), "Veronica Mars" has so far remained superb and I'm really enjoying "Heroes". And don't even get me started on how awesome "The Wire" and "Battlestar Galactica" have been this season. I could go on, but I'll let that stand for now.
Actually, how about this: If you're reading this somewhere other than my Den of Iniquity, head over there to tell me what you're watching these days.
Originally published at Sasha's Den of Iniquity. You can comment here or there.
Unknown Armies
game. (Question: If the default right-this-minute UA campaign is all about the postmodern occult, should my 1920s throwback then be all about the modern?)
The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld - Herbert Asbury
Written back in 1936, this one is from the same author who did The Gangs of New York , upon which Scorsese based his film. I've only just started it, but so far it looks promising.
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America - John M. Barry
Whether I use this event or not has yet to be decided, but this certainly looks like a great slice of Louisiana's culture and politics from the appropriate era.
Originally published at Sasha's Den of Iniquity. You can comment here or there.
You have no doubt noticed by now that I'm posting on the Den of Iniquity in a more blog-like fashion. There are a few reasons for this. The first is that I've really started to neglect this place, even more so than normal. This is due to changes in my online habits and also simple boredom with what I've been doing with the site over the last few years. The books and the drinks haven't really been getting me the feedback I think I need to keep interested in chronicling them. I'll probably still post about choice examples of each, simply because I adore books and booze, but not as organized and regular as I used to aspire to.
The other thing is, online habits being what they have become, I just have less time online than I used to. I can set up the Den to crosspost to LJ and Vox, and so I can keep everyone who may care up to speed in a 1/3 of the time. I can still have posts that are only for a particular community but for the most part, I expect to spam you all. Unless I get some hate mail from you.
Now I just have to start coming up with more interesting things to write about. I figure that as the frequency of my posts go down, the individual quality should go up. So, what sorts of things would you, the public, like to see me write about? Anything? Anything at all?
Here's something, from Wired:
Originally published at Sasha's Den of Iniquity. You can comment here or there.
My elbow hurts. Part of me wonders if I have elbow cancer, but most of me thinks that part of me is stupid.
Last night I talked to my boss about a raise. He wants to talk to two other people, his vice president and our controller. I don't know if he knows this but...those two people have been telling me for more than a month now that they want me to get a raise. One of them even said they hope I get a raise to exactly as much as I was planning on asking for.
For those of you in Sacramento, in the next few weeks I'm going to want to host viewings of a few movies (as soon as my DVR records them): Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, Chopper, and Versus; If you're interested, let me know.
Originally published at Sasha's Den of Iniquity. You can comment here or there.
Seriously, between work, getting two RPG campaigns going, and also trying to chill out and veg sometimes, I just haven't been on the online tip lately. No longer blogging and surfing from work probably has a lot to do with it, too.
Anyway, work is going really well. I'm due for a raise any day now. I have keys to the place, and have been described as "essential" by my boss. Last Friday I bought a forklift. I've been watching a lot of TV, thanks for getting every God-damned channel, and our wonderful, wonderful DVR. The new season of "The Wire" is especially tasty, yo.
I think I finally have my two campaigns sorted out, with character creation done and my first actual roleplay session taking place on the 14th, next weekend. the Spycraft 2.0 game turned into an Unknown Armies game because of the horrible mess the gear system turned out to be in the first printing. Oh well, there are worse things that could happen, especially since the players picked New Orleans in the 1920s for a locale; tasty research, here I come!
Anyway, this is also a test of the crossposting from my Den of Iniquity to Livejournal and Vox.
I'm gonna go watch "Veronica Mars" now.
What's the most memorable building you've lived in?
Submitted by Shelly.
Architecturally? None, really. The place on Manlove Road was probably the one with the most memorable memories formed in it.
What time period would you have lived in, if you could have lived at any time?
I like now, but I do like the 1950s. I'm too aware of the lameness of pre-modern eras to really want to live in them.
I think my company is rapidly becoming the most diverse roofing company in California. Unlike other companies, our roofers aren't all Mexican men or American men of Mexican descent, we now have a mexican woman and an African-American man!
I'm in a sort of zombie-like daze today, after the long weekend ending with me only getting 5 hours of sleep before coming in to work this morning. I'm busy, but I keep losing track of my work and watching the clock. Anyway, I'm going to clear my head by doing a different task for a few minutes; namely, by writing a post for this place. For a topic I'll pick something that's been occurring to me over the last week or so; namely, my disinterest in posting on LiveJournal. (My LJ name is Cynaguan, by the way.) Beware, though: fucked up drama ahead.
See, a few months ago there was a schism within my circle of friends. Someone who'd been my friend for many, many years started acting poorly, treating a bunch of people badly and just being an asshole, son of a bitch. Now, this person was going through a break-up at the time, and has some mental-wellness issues, so I was doing my best to be understanding, give him space, reserve judgment and wait out the turmoil. Unfortunately that wasn't working out. In retrospect it almost seems like he was actively trying to tear things down. Every time there was some trouble, I'd get to a place where we could go back to waiting out the madness, and then there would be another load of drama. This kept up for at least a month until he abruptly decided that he was going to start "writing off" friends because of things he had "heard they were saying", without asking those friends to hear their side of things. One of those people he decided to abruptly dump on was my wife, and immediately after doing so he wanted the two of us to exchange things we'd borrowed from one another, "just in case." I tried to explain how bad I thought it was to dump people you've been friends with for years, based on hearsay, without letting them explain or defend themselves. He wouldn't have it, but seemed to think that I'd still be his friend after seeing him treat so many other people, including some very close to me, like utter shit.
Well, that's not how I roll, see. Like I've said to my wife, "I don't have to be a Jew to think Nazis are bad." I'm not going to be friends with an asshole, even if they're never an asshole to me. So, I told him to go stuff himself. Since then I've had to deal with the fact that almost none of our mutual friends seems to think he's done anything wrong. One or two are still seeing me regularly but others, including people he met by knowing me, see him regularly and are starting to seem to grow further away from me. None of them has said anything (though I wish they'd just own up to it and do so), but they're flaking on stuff I planned with them to end up doing stuff with him. I'm running out of alternative conclusions to draw, and am really starting to believe that sticking by friends and loved ones (not to mention my own self respect) is ending up costing me a lot of friends. I don't know if it's because I haven't forcefully argued my case in the matter or what. I figured I'd respect their neutrality; it's just that for most of 'em it seems like neutrality is a pretty fable they keep telling, regardless of the truth.
Anyway, back to LJ. All those people are on LJ, and it seems to make the place an oppressive one for me. I toy with ideas about writing a big, long screed about the bullshit that went down, arguing my case, etc. That just sounds like drama to me. I think about posting about how lonely an isolated seeing all my friends move in that direction has made me feel sometimes, but that just sounds like emo-kid whininess to me. I think what I'll be doing, for now, is spending a lot of time over here and, in a few months, when I can be more sure who's taken sides and who's just busy or flaky, pare down my friend list over there and see what I can do with the place.
At least over here I can post about books real easy.
