Journal

Every once in a while a website comes along that kicks my arse in awesomeness. The last one that I remember clearly, was the one for unrealideas.com (now under construction), which I immediately downloaded in full so that I know that I suck. Recently I found We Feel Fine, and it’s absolutely awesome.

Well, it seems everything’s working like it’s supposed to, and my thanks goes out to Marco for doing a fantastic job in moving the server over and patching everything in such a way that things actually work when booting up the server. That doesn’t happen very often. People are filling up the shoutbox, and I can start filling up my journal again.

Things have been a little, eh, hectic of late. There’s a lot of stuff going on and some potential life-altering decisions and changes to be made in the near future. I also am in dire need for a good hermitic seclusion for a week or so, as I’m getting a little stressed out by little things, lately. That doesn’t happen to me very often, and when it does I usually don’t notice before everyone else has, so yeah; an open apology to anyone I may have pissed off by being a grumpy fuckhead lately.

Destressing. I had my first MMA class yesterday and it was rather brutal. Mostly grappling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu this class, but they do also combine it with kickboxing, just not yesterday. I didn’t do too badly, although the other 8 or 9 guys that were there had significantly more experience than I, and I was summarily beaten each and every time I sparred with some of them, I did manage to get some to tap a few times, which, considering my knowledge of MMA is strictly by watching it.

I had a short conversation with the teacher while we were watching some of the others spar. It was about something random and suddenly he asks me if I was a student. Now, I know I can look (and act) a little young for my age, but c’mon! So I told him that I had graduated quite some years ago, and he asked me what I had studied. Business Information Technology, I reply. He proceeds to tell me that it’s so cool that I got a degree, and that most of the guys in his class weren’t so, eh, well-educated. I looked around and saw all these tall, muscular, Cro-magnon looking guys with arms made of concrete, and I figured I probably didn’t have much in common with them.

What surprised me, as this 100 kg guy was lying on top of me trying to choke the life out of me, is that the techniques used generally don’t take quite as much effort as you might think. It’s like a chess-game, though, because the slightest difference in your positioning, or your opponent’s posture, and you’ll have to forego on one technique and go for another. It’s going to take some time before I am comfortable enough to make those decisions without it being too conscious.

On to gaming; we recently, after a hiatus of a couple of weeks while I was on holiday and Dennis and Frank were on holiday, resumed the tail end of my 18 month D&D campaign, and I’m getting excited. I think I should be busy for another three or four sessions or so before either the characters are dead, or their adversary is taken care of, at which time we’re going to play a new game in which I hopefully get to play a bit. (Dennis, you better start planning your game, dude.)

I saw my mother yesterday and she looked pretty energized. While she can’t walk any real distance and so is confined to a wheelchair when she goes out, it’s good to see she can get up and down the stairs by herself and manages to get about and do her thing. She doesn’t seem so tired anymore, but she is feeling her arthritis quite a bit now that she’s off the pain medication. She’s still being chemo’ed and they’re going to start with the directed radiology soon and hopefully that will send the cancer into remittance.

And then last but not least, I think I may have to find some counseling regarding my father. People have been telling me left, right and centre that it might be a good idea, and I’m afraid they might be seeing something I’m not seeing. Perhaps I’m not dealing with it quite as well as I thought I was. On the one hand, if it lightens the load a little, that’d be nice, on the other hand, I don’t ever want to get rid of the sadness. I want to contain it, and keep it inside me to remind me how much he meant to me.

Just so everyone knows, our host will be moving, so the website and e-mail will be down for a little while. Don’t know when it’ll be back up, but if you keep an eye on your RSS readers, you’ll see when my next journal post pops up and will know when the site is back online.

My weekend had its ups and downs, but I want to focus for a moment on the board game we played; Arkham Horror. I love it. I totally love it. It takes a moment to understand the tactics, and it can be a bit overwhelming at the start; there’s a lot of decks and tokens, and the playing field is large, and elaborate. But it’s not that complex once someone takes 15 minutes to explain it to you.

You play an investigator that, together with the other investigators played by the other players need to prevent one of the Ancient Ones from entering our realm. All over Arkham portals to other dimensions are opening, and monsters come hand-in-hand with these portals. The monsters are scaring the local populace, and the more monsters roam around unchecked, the more shops close down, and the sooner the Ancient One comes to our world. Your investigator can close the portals and defeat the enemies, using an array of mundane and magical items, as well as spells and skills.

So instead of competing against your fellow-players, you cooperate with them. You can share or trade items, spells and use your skills on one another. (For example, the doctor can heal himself or others.) Besides finding spells and forbidden knowledge, you can also find artifacts that can help you. Closing the portal to other dimensions sees you exploring the dimension before closing and sealing it shut. I know I’m kind of jumping from one thing to the next without any real structure to my review of this game, but that’s because I’m very enthused about it, and I don’t know what to talk about first. :)

Last night, Dennis, Richard, Mouls, Robin, Mark and I had to prevent the emergence of Ithaqua, the Windwalker. Dennis played a Magician, whose name I forgot. Mark played Ashcan Pete, a Drifter. Mouls played Diamond Jack, the Private Eye. Richard played the Professor, and my brother played the Doctor. I played Sister Mary, the Nun. Not a very physical character (although once I was geared up she did kick a holy amount of ass.) Sadly, I had to leave before the game was finished, but we were well on our way to shut Ithaqua down permanently (as much as you can do that with Ancient Ones.)

To quote Caz: this game rocked the socks, packed the cheeks and rolled the coasters. I want to play it again! :)

Yesterday I was having some food with Dennis, and we were discussing how we should be lucky that we can both instantly fall asleep, anywhere, any time. Ironically, (bad) karma kicked my ass for that foolish notion almost immediately by not allowing me any sleep from about 4:30 am onward. Too many things on the brain.