The End Of April

We come to the end of a month, and it is a wet end for me. Flooding waters all over the place. It makes me sorta glad I live on the third floor of my building. For next month I plan on doing more game related stuff on my blog. Reviews and thoughts on some games that I found interesting, from first looks at new releases to plot reviews of old games. May shall be the month of games, and that is final.

Dreams are vague.

This is a dream I get every time I move to a new place. I am not kidding, it happens every time I move home and I keep dreaming about it for a month until I get used to the new location. The first time I remember having this dream would be when I was about Eight years old and my family first moved houses.

I start out sitting on a train as we move across the tracks, passing nondescript buildings and fields. There are other people sitting down, reading or just staring into space as we pass by stuff. We get to a crossing where the road goes across the tracks and the cart i am in disconnects. I can feel that it is no longer part of the train, so I stand up and run to the next cart before this one slows down and gets left behind. Not soon after the new cart disconnects and I keep running to get closer to the engine cart. No one else in my dream seem to notice or care that they have become disconnected, as they just keep standing or sitting doing whatever.

So I keep going forward onto the next cart on this really long train as each cart disconnects and slows down a little quicker. There are several endings to this dream, three of them to be exact. The most common one is the cart I currently am on flips over onto its side, crashing but leaving me unharmed as I stand up in the rubble. Later in the month I start to get the ending where I reach the engine and ride off into the distance before waking up. The ending that shows I won't be getting the dream anymore has me pulling up to a station and getting off.

Now I don't need to have any sort of degree in psychologically to know that this dream represents a fear, then acceptance of change. Especially considering the trigger that is required to have this dream in the first place. I plan on moving a lot, at least while I am single that is, and I still get this dream when I first move into a place. I have already come to accept it as it is and willing don't change the dream as I have learned to. I look forward to this dream as part of the ritual of moving in.

This travelers is the end of my recurring dreams, any more posts about the inside of my head while I am asleep will be dreams that left an impact or tips on how to become the master of your own dreams. Until next time.

Sigh, I want my old tv station back.

Brimestone, Sliders(First Season), Stargate even.

Why must all the good things on TV die. I was reminded today of my favorite of all stations on TV has completed a ritual suicide of itself by changing its lineup and name. SyFy, I know change is something we all go through and you think you are being "hip" and "cool" but your greatest strength was being somewhat of an anachronism. You showed things how they could be in the far future with science, go back to doing that.

I weep for you, may who ever takes your place last for at least until after I have children and made them grow up with it.

Ok, first chew at the Hero System(Grups)

From my first impression it is a more combat version of GRUPS. If you know anything about tabletop rpgs, then you might have heard of the system. You use three six sided dice to determine skill checks and all that jazz, so once you get the mechanics down you can create your very own fluffed out hero depending on the character point limit set by the DM. I have a few concepts in my head for a few powers and such that I need to work out some of the cost of so it does not make my character pass out to cast. Overall, i have seen this all before in GRUPS, it is a solid system and I am happy to have a few more rule books lying around.

Me Oh My, what a large book.

So I just got my books I ordered in, and the main one is huge! I did not expect the size when I bought it, expecting it to only be like 250 pages or so if that. What I got was a monster of a book of around near 500 pages. This is just the first volume, the Hero System Sixth Edition set of books. I picked it up to add to my collection of RPG systems I play and I am in the process of learning the rules. When the books came in it perked me right up. I have been feeling very drained mentally from work recently, wanting nothing more than to sleep for a week. But with the new system to learn(have learned? This looks like Grups...) I have just gotten quite the mental boost. Warm fuzzes to everyone.

edit: This first book is Character Creation(500 pages for that, really?)

So, this government of mine. What are they doing again?

Well I guess it is about time I went ahead and told you all that I am an American and in the Military. Seems that I might not get paid due to some 535 people unable to agree on who has the biggest dick and should be getting votes. Now I don't much care for anyone involved in politics. It is just a group of people directing how this nation should grow while trying to make their own lives as comfortable as possible, or at least this is how I see it. All I want is to be paid and live happy as a cog powering the engine of creativity and enjoyable pastimes, such as games and science. My opinion stated I will now never mention the topic of government again until something more relevant happens, like a law that stops games from being sold because of deviant themes present in them or some such nonsense.

To all that play Fantasy Football

NNNEEEEERRRRRRDDDDD!!!


Ahem. Anyway, I was reminded of this subject when I was talking to some friends about making a D&D game and got the response from someone, "I would like to play, but D&D just seems to nerdy to me." I know this guy, he follows sports enough to know very minute details about most of the players. He also participates in a fantasy football league. Now correct me if I am wrong, but is not learning an obscene amount of minutia about something and having a game built around such information the very definition of nerdy?

With Sleep Derivation Comes...

Small moments of clarity that let me advance further into the games I play. It is surprising to me that I can find just the right path or tactic to circumvent my latest gaming block. I could spend about a full hour puzzling over something and not make any progress, but if I was just a wee bit more tired the pieces seem to fall into place and I overcome the thing blocking me. It works on stuff that I have not spent hours on, as new parts come up that would normally stump me for a bit become a breeze. If I come back to it later, I often wonder how I cam up with the exact right solution on my first try no less.

Water Room

My second nightmare, the one where I learned the most control over my dreams, was one that felt like my dreams were trying to teach me something. It all ways started out with me sliding down a water slide into an enclosed pool. the thing was covered with a roof and had holes in the side where other kids would fall into the water, trapped as I was. We would mill about, treading water until I woke up. This did not frighten me at first, but as it started repeating, I came to dread it.

This was still around the same time I was having the Wyld Hunt dream so it was a welcome change to the pure terror of that nightmare. And as I learned how to drive my dreams, it was in this dream that I found that I had the most control. I started by just looking around instead of staring in one direction so that I could now see other children ducking under the water, swimming to somewhere I could not see yet. As I grew more brave in my dreams I started diving down to see where the other children left. Turns out there are several holes or tunnels in the walls just below the water.

These ways out frightened me as I thought about them, what if I run out of air, what if it is a dead end, what if they lead to sharks? But these where the concerns of my waking self as I thought about how to control my dreams. Once I was in the dream, all I felt in terms of emotion was a feeling of content. I did not like that more of the others where diving down into the water and to the holes. The dream would also start where I was in the water already and not in the slide. Soon there would be only about 15 around me in the pool when there used to be a whole lot more.

I finally worked up the courage to dive down and swim into one of the tunnels, and anyone who knows about lucid dreaming, found I did not have much to worry about breathing underwater. That kind of thing makes you even more aware that you are dreaming and gives you more control over the dream. So I gave myself an ending of coming up near the shore of the beach just before waking up.

This Dream Travelers is not as twisted and terrifying as the first, but still had a profound effect on how I dream. I hope you enjoyed the trip into my head.

Loose Change

So I have scoured my room high and low, checking pockets of pants and jackets for all my loose change in my room. Guess how much I found? $62.44, sixty two dollars and forty four cents. Wow, just wow. Mind you this is not all in change, I have found a four large bills here and there, but still most of it is. I am not even sure I have found all of it yet. I am sure to look somewhere and find still more change under a book, or even in it as a bookmark. I swear, I multiply loose change faster than bunny rabbits in my room.

What kind of pile of money have you found fellow travelers, what amount lies between couch cushions and in drawers?