Welcome to my little chunk of the web. This journal has become mostly friends-only; apparently I'm getting reclusive in my advanced age. If you are interested in seeing more content, add me, and I'll generally add you back.

I also maintain a couple of filters. If you feel brave and daring and bold and would like to be included on those, please comment here and I will add you to the things you want to read.
Currently, I have these things filtered:

• KC Local - events in and around Kansas City, usually that I am exhorting people to attend.
  
• Discordianism - weird occurrences, surrealist activism, generalized Erisian activities.
  
• Fiction - lies, damned lies, and story-telling. These are the stories I write when I am awake, as opposed to the stories I write when I am asleep, which are on a different filter, and usually make less sense.
  
• Woo-woo - Spiritual and magical discussion and recording.
  
• Balderdash! - I run a game of Balderdash, modified for LJ, and for the really smart people on my friendslist. Seriously, have you ever tried to play regular Balderdash with really smart people? It's useless, they know all the words.
  
• Subconscious theater - dreams and other things that come to me while sleeping.

Thanks for dropping by!

I cooked a turkey. It was tasty. Nobody died. I'm still in shock.

Since I'm home with the sickness, I figured I'd do something useful with my day. I updated my Etsy shop with the new shinies. Anybody want to buy shinies? I'll wipe them down with sanitizer before I send them to you. :)

I like Torchwood a lot better, now that I have discovered that it's really a dramatization of a really long game of Don't Rest Your Head. We're almost through the first season (I think), and... it's still bad. But now it's bad and funny, which is okay. Doctor Who is bad and funny. But yeah, Don't Rest Your Head.
( Some blather that will not make a lot of sense if you are unfamiliar with either Torchwood or Don't Rest Your Head, but that I think is funny, because I'm a big dork. )
More importantly, because of Torchwood, I can now properly pronounce Aberystwyth! I hope they go to Machynlleth soon, or Merthyr Tydfil. :)

I'm a nice-looking boy.

DragonCon pictures are up, and mostly tagged. Also, they are awesome. But you knew that.

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT

I have somehow lost the striped sleeve dress that I'm wearing in this icon. You know, the one I was planning on wearing at DragonCon.

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT

Has anybody seen it??????

Does anybody have any idea how to make the outfit work without it?

Found it! The funny thing about clothing with a single really dramatic and identifying feature is that when you fold that dramatic and identifying feature to the inside and then hang it, you miss it in the closet. Still, in the process, I found Everything Else I Have Ever Lost. Clothing, birthday gifts, Playboys from the 70's, a bag of candy I bought last month and misplaced, Jimmy Hoffa, Everything. Whew.

So yeah. I have started a community for play-by-post games. If you're interested, please join us at dirtyhippygames. :)

One of the other things that made this weekend brilliant was that I got a chance to play one of our shiny new Filthy Hippie Games at Games Night on Friday. triadruid, ruisseau, popefelix and I spent the evening at A Penny for My Thoughts, and it was wildly entertaining.

A Penny for My Thoughts is a non-competitive, diceless storytelling game. In it, each player is a patient undergoing a radical experimental treatment for severe retrograde amnesia. This is actually a lot more fun than it sounds. Anyway, the shtick is that you have all been given a drug called Mnemosyne, and this drug allows you to see into the other people's minds, and help them recover their memories.
( Read more... )

Okay - two questions.

1) Who's going?

2) Anybody want to be in the parade with me? The fearless and imaginative rbrav is heading a marching group representing the Periodic Table of Elements. Yours truly will be prometheum. triadruid is marching as his favorite element, molybdenum. We're missing a few elements, though. If we snag 20 more people or so, we'll have an entire table. All you gotta do (minimally) is walk the route wearing a printed sign with the name of the element, the abbreviation, the atomic number, and the atomic weight pinned to your clothes. If'n you wanna make something more elaborate, that's cool too.

EDIT: I lie. Three questions.

3) Does anybody local (to me) have any liquid latex (for theatrical makeup, you dirty birdies) that they'd be willing to share? I need to be able to give triadruid a convincing scar, and I don't think he wants me to do it the old-fashioned way. *grin* Also, I don't really want to buy a ton of latex for just this one thing. Thanks!

In other news, in other places, rowangolightly is coordinating an auction of goods and services to benefit apocalypticbob, who has recently had a run of bad luck, including the expensive car-fail kind. You can find it here.

There's lots of good stuff up for bid here, including that I WILL BAKE YOU COOKIES. You know you want some of that. Go click.

Happy birthday, mijan and rowangolightly!

Having heard that I liked trains, the universe (with the help of some of you!) has lovingly provided me with much train-based joy.

First, primitivepeople rode the very sexy High Speed One, and posted lovely pictures.

Then, greektoomey pointed me towards The Train Suite I: Viscous Oil & Persimmon Tea, which includes the lovely bit of Palimpsest I'm so in love with about the trains of heaven, and also some very nice train backing vocals.

And then! corwin00, over on his Facebook, shared this amazing paper city, with, oh yes my friends, a working paper train. I will be very disappointed in you if you don't click that, because if you don't, you will have willfully missed out on a thing of intricate and frankly fucking impressive beauty.

I'm home from the Northwest. I have lots of pictures. The best of the set are uploading as we speak. I should label and tag them all, but kids, I am tired. The trip was completely amazing. It was a little like this:


Tomorrow, I'll post more coherently. Right now, I'm going to bed.

Here is your daily dose of oh my god that's freaking amazing. Danny MacAskill does bicycle parkour, Edinburgh.

I was having a conversation with druidevo in which I was pointing out that I am easily the only pagan on the planet who doesn't have a totem animal. Oh, sure, I like birds and dogs and foxes and things, and if pressed, I can probably give you at least one way in which I am like any animal you care to name, but I don't have any special relationship with any of them. I can probably also give you at least one reason that I'm like any given car, or breakfast cereal, too. That doesn't really mean anything.

Now, druidevo was not buying this story. He says, "You do too have a totem. Hello, monster." And I thought, "Hrm. Is monster a totem? Monster's sort of, well, unnatural for a guiding nature spirit, isn't it? But hell, maybe that works. I don't know."

So I'm thinking about the whole business. The totem thing is rooted in identification, which is to say that the person who has the totem thinks of themselves as being like the totem in some significant ways, but also about guidance, which is to say that the person who has the totem feels that they are being taught important things by observation of the totem. I am certainly like a monster. That part's easy. But what, if anything does monster teach?

1. Not everything fits neatly into one of any given set of pigeonholes. Some things are built haphazardly from a motley collection of organs and systems. And really, isn't that more interesting and impressive?

2. Think long term and practice patience. When you can sleep beneath the vasty deeps for aeons uncounted, or survive for hundreds of years in remote arctic research facilities, before emerging again into the daylight of human consciousness, you understand that not everything has to happen right at this very moment.

3. Sometimes, you have to rampage in order to get what you need. Had Frankenstein's monster stayed quietly in the castle minding his own business, the doctor would never have needed to build him a Bride to placate him.

4. Looks can be deceiving. Gamera, despite his fearsome appearance, is a friend to children everywhere.

5. Never accept limitations. There's always something out there that you can use to rebuild, enhance, or mutate yourself into a more capable form.

6. Be adaptable. Really, where would The Blob have been if it could only engulf and eat a limited range of Earth substances?

And of course:

7. History shows again and again how Nature points up the folly of men. Godzilla!

So there you are, seven valuable lessons from monster. Now, you might also say that monster runs rampant all over everything, indiscriminately killing everything it encounters, and doing vast amounts of damage to perfectly innocent superstructures. You would, of course, be correct, but hey. Crows steal shiny things, wolves terrify the populace, and bears shit in the woods, but you don't hear anybody bringing that stuff up in totem discussions, do you?

Inexplicably good together: Murder Ballad Blackjack.

An old favorite: The Big Stupid Puzzle.

You know in your heart of hearts that you always wanted to see Freddie Mercury juggle. Or maybe that's just me.

Bonus Circus Goodness: Acrobat David O'Mer takes a bath.

1. Thai Spider-Man Saves Autistic Boy. Firefighter uses superhero costume to talk a scared boy off a ledge. Alleges that he keeps Spider-Man costume in his locker at work "to liven up school fire drills". We here at Featherynscale Industries are suspicious, but impressed. You go, cosplay guy!

2. "Sometimes the best news is that a story makes no news." Seventh-grade math teacher invites whole class to his commitment ceremony, nobody thinks it's that big a deal. Bonus points: 1. When asked "were you surprised to learn your teacher was gay?", seventh graders responded: “He’s not gay,” said Japhet Guzman, 12. “No,” agreed a lanky 13-year-old who walked with a bit of a tough-guy swagger, “he’s not gay. He’s bisexual. Why don’t you ask him?” 2. Bisexual math teacher is tremendously cute. Of course, he's a bisexual math teacher, so I may have some bias in that assessment.

In honor of Perceval le Galois, I present today's game. It is a simple game in concept, but might produce interesting results. Perceval stumbled upon the Grail Castle early in life, but, out of a fear of appearing ignorant, failed to ask several relevant questions of the Grail King. Perceval was cast out of the castle, and ended up spending most of the rest of his life looking for a second chance, and the Grail King and his lands remained wounded and in waste until the knight was able to return and ask.

So. Here's the deal. In this post, anonymous comments are accepted. If you have a stupid question that you've been avoiding asking, whether it's a question for me personally, or a general question, post it as an anonymous comment. I or someone else will attempt to answer it as best we can. If your question is directed to me, please indicate that. Otherwise, anybody can (and should) respond.

Any questions?

EDIT:
Open Questions:
What do you get out of tabletop gaming?