On Role-Playing Games and Family Vacations

I didn't think I'd be posting in awhile, but this blog has been part of my life for so long that I can't see myself not posting. Yes, most of the time I post about nothing, but nothing really happens in my life. Especially around summer.

I don't know if the Changeling LARP is happening, which is a shame. I sent an email to the people there and have had no reply. Once University starts again I'll ask my contact if things are still going on. If it seems likely to continue I'll join, if not then I'll have to wait for another.

It's raining outside at the moment. Thunder and everything. I just thought I'd mention that, because I like it when there is rain and thunder. It's cool and I like the way thunder sounds. It means I'm stuck here at my local coffee house but that's alright.

Anyways, and I should have started with this, but I have done something recently. I have been to my Aunt and Uncle's Cottage in the Muskokas. I suppose it was fun most of the time, but I was also stressed because of all the stuff I had to deal with. There was to many people for me to deal with on a regular basis, about nine besides myself and hardly much in the way for me to really be on my own without bugs eating at me. I did finish Salinger's "Nine Stories," while I was there. I don't think I actually got it though. My friend who suggested it said it is about human interaction and sudden twists, but I didn't really get it. It was probubly my autism, so for the most part it was just a bunch of neurotypicals doing neurotypical things. I also finished Bolano's "2666," but that was before I even left. I don't think I understood that either, but not in the way I didn't understand Nine Stories.

I remember someone once compared Bolano's work to "Highway 61 Revisted," the Bob Dylan song. That made sense, and in many ways Bolano's writing is like Bob Dylan's writing during that period. It's beautifully written and dense and really dosen't make that much sense while still remaining spellbindingly brilliant. Besides that "2666" and "Highway 61" are both similar in various respects. Both revolve around a series of locations, the Mexican border town of Santa Teresa in "2666," Highway 61 in the Bob Dylan song. The location stays the same in both song and book, but various interconnected stories are told within them. I don't know what it is in the Bob Dylan song that connects all these stories besides Highway 61, but in Bolano's novel it is the murder of various women and the reclusive author Benno von Archimboldi. I don't know the meaning for either song or book, but it is something I am curious about both.

Anyways, the role-playing game I hope to run in the fall is becoming something of an obsession, most specifically desighing the supernatural political situation in Weimar Berlin. It was hard enough since I came up with just having Mages, but now I'm working on setting up a vampiric court. The way it went was that the game was going to become rather political and involve a lot of turmoil and it felt a shame to leave vampires out of it. As such I've got a list of the various roles withing a vampire court and am going to come up with roles for each. This is hard since I don't really have much of the political structure of the Mage Consiliuum set up. I have an idea on the Hierarch, his Provost, the Consilor for the Mysterium and a few other important people but not much else. I'm going to have to come up with everyone else during the time it takes to set up the game.

I'm not going to start the game immediatly when I get to University. First of all, I only have two people, and I want to see who else is interested. After that I'd like to talk with them a bit about their characters. I want to get a handle of what kind of PCs I'll be dealing with. I think this is a better idea then last time, since I can see how to work them into the story, which is more or less about the rise of the Nazis, though at first it's going to be rather political with various bits of the fun hedonistic side of Weimar Berlin. I'd like to work more of this into the game, but I'd like to know who is going to play and what kind of characters they are so I can put together the story. I'd like to put all the issues together, for instance one character is looking for his long lost sister, another is trying to stop the Holocaust. Does lost sister have something to do with the Holocaust? Maybe, we'll have to see. Also, it would help the players to look up things on the time period to add any biographical details. One of the characters is a veteran of the Polish-Soviet War for instance, and to run his Awakening I'm going to start with his participation in the Battle of Warsaw.

I don't really know if my obsession with this is a problem or not. I enjoy coming up with this game. I enjoy the research aspect and I enjoy coming up with ways to mess with the heads of the PCs. For instance, I'm learning about the New York Mafia now. One of the characters is a gangster, I think from New York but I can't remember, and as such I want to read up on Gangsters to make things more historically accurate though I fully admit that I'm using Wikipedia as my main source. If anyone knows the situation of the New York Mafia around 1922 - 1923, I'd really appreciate it. Also, I'm going to have fun role-playing all the Mafia Wiseguys during that character's Awakening and the New York Storyline I'm working on.

I Thought This Would Be Longer

I've had a pretty eventful few days, filled with equal parts activity and ennui. The activity is largelly involved with me going out for a weekend with some relatives to their cottage and watching the film Apocalypse Now. The ennui is my lack of a job and thus my day-to-day activities are not exactly ordered.

The trip to Muskoka I won't go into, just to say that it was an alright trip, I editted a short story I was working on and it was very relaxing. I'll also have some pictures up as soon as my relatives send it to me.

I had been having a strange desire to see Apocalypse Now for awhile. I saw a bit of it, but I never saw the whole movie. Sunday I managed to sit down and watch the entire film. It is one of the best movies I have ever seen and I will put it on the top ten list of the best movies I have ever seen. I'll have to make that list for the blog some day, it would give me something to do.

Speaking of things to do, I am bored most of the time. I am getting up later and later, and there is little reason for me to get up at all. I am barelly reading or writing, and I spend my nights in misery because I can't get to sleep and I have no one to talk too. I am working out a way to get up earlier, for what good it will do me. I'll tell you all about it later.

English Mid-Term

I'm tired. I want to go home. I want to sleep in a descent bed and not think about University for a week. It turns out I won't have to worry about it for a weekend however, and even then I still have to read the Republic. But the Republic is nothing I worry about, it's my English mid-term. I'm holding on to the end of the perverbial stick and all I want to do is to go to sleep for a few hours without the damn Ipod going of at 7:50 every day.

So in other news, I'm back to Aspie Diaries. I like that name better then Notes from the Bunker. This blog is going to be Aspie Diaries for years and years. When I have written the first four novels, then this will still be The Aspie Diaries.

And that's basically it. Aspie Diaries again, and tired and want to go home.

My Weeklong trip to the Cottage of Hell

Well, I'm back from a week long vacation to a cottage on the Bruce Peninsula that was badly built and had a terrible shower and I couldn't be happier. The cottage I was at was terribly built and I didn't like it at all. I was also sharing it with my entire family and some of my relatives who have six people in there family, two of them little girls so you can imagine the screaming when you combine that with Sprite.

So, a summary of my vacation is in order. I can't give you much in the way of a complete linear narrative, but I can tell you I did have a good time. I went to various beaches, went for a few hikes with my relatives and emediate family, saw an example of Native-Canadian dancing and took part in an intertribal dance, bought twelve books including William S. Burrough's "Naked Lunch", watched an old Chinese Kung-Fu B-Movie that had a terrible plot but still remained pretty awesome, hit my head repetedly on a door that was to small, had a bat fly at me, liseaned to alot of Dead Dog Cafe, had a camp fire and had fudge. I can't remember what else I did besides watching my copy of "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly."

I have decided I am officially decided I am holidayed out. I will probubly take this back when it happens, but I want to go to school again. Maybe I won't take it back because I'm only going part time and I'm doing philosophy and art, which look like there going to be really good courses for me. I'm also looking for people to play Dungeons and Dragons with, probubly using an adjusted version of Mythania.

On another note, I may have to change the name of Mythania. It turns out the name is used by a MMORG and another world called Mythania that has some similarities, for instance it has steam technology and rodent people although from what I've read of these rodent people they are drastically different from the tawaze. Here's a list of other Mythania links.

• Some weird poem
• Stuff on Wikipedia on the other Mythania
• Some American lady who is oddly enough 23. How'd you like that coinsidence?
• Somebody's character in Warcraft
• Some story called "Mythania Sorrow the Fallen One" about an angel or something
• Some account on Quizilla

That's about it. Hope you guys find it interesting. Sorry it took so long to write all this.

I'm back from the cottage again and this time I'm posting!

Hey, sorry I didn't blog in awhile. This is turning out to be the August of Cottage Trips. No sooner do I get home from my relatives cottage then I go back there with my entire family, and I did have time to blog last time but I didn't because I am lazy. Just to warn you I'm going for another trip next week. I'm going with the cousins whole will have the highest chance of playing Dungeons and Dragons with me, which will be cool. I'd love to do the Mythania RPG, but I don't have that quite ironed out yet. Not to bad, I plan on doing lot's of new and exciting things with Forgotten Realms.
Anyway, the cottage trips were fun. I went tubing alot, and there is a good chance of me sending you pictures of myself tubing. I got two new books, one having a bunch of short stories by H.P. Lovecraft and the other having a bunch of Poetry by Lord Byron, despite the fact I believe I have more in common with Percy Brysse Shelley. Shelley is defenetly going to be the next poet I pick up. I also finished Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which as recent readers would know I borrowed from my Uncle.
I didn't work alot on my novel, and it's starting to look like I won't be getting much of a chance to get it finished completely by the end of Summer. I do believe I am making progress on it, and at some point today I will get to work on it. I'm also getting alot of ideas about the whole Conspiracy-Urban Fantasy-Counter Culture megaseries. I'm thinking about calling it The Rosicrucian Cycle at the moment, as the secret society I concentrate most on is based somewhat on the Rosicrucians, and to The Invisibles as well. I'm thinking about working Grant Morrison in as a character, as I want to have historical characters appear in the novel. I feel that Ken Kesey should appear in the 1960's thing, which I'm calling The Fellowship something-something, depends on how many books are in it. I have a feeling it may be one of the longest in the megaseries. I thought I could do four books, but then it seemed like five, and then I had no idea what I was going to do. But combine that with the Apocalypse storyline and The Howlers (one trilogy and a few short stories) and probubly some kind of history of the organization before that, which I'm probubly going to put as an appendix in the Fellowship and Apocalypse books....Well, I've probubly given to much away. I'll stop talking about it.
Anyway, I'll try to call back in. Also, I'm putting 7 on the labels for this post, as I will do on every seventh day of the month because it's one of the special numbers. The same will be said for all other numbers envolved.