The scary thing about this article on The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity is trying to figure out where I fall on the chart. I suspect that I would fall under H2 or H1 depending on the day.
Archive for September, 2005
Quotes for Sept 10, 2005
Sep 10
That’s life for you, said McDunn. Someone always waiting for someone who never comes home. Always someone loving something more than that thing loves them. And after awhile you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it can’t hurt you no more.
– Ray Bradbury, “The Fog Horn
You loved people and you came to depend on their being there. But people died or changed or went away and it hurt too much. The only way to avoid that pain was not to love anyone, and not to let anyone get too close or too important. The secret to not being hurt like this again, I decided, was never depending on anyone, never needing, never loving. It is the last dream of children, to be forever untouched.
– Audre Lorde
Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bittersweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply *being* hurt and take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.
– Alain de Botton
Being Angry
Sep 4
I hate getting angry. It seems that it always bites me on the butt, no matter what the outcome, no matter what I do. Here’s the most recent situation.
We share a farmyard with two other families – one the original farm owner and the other the new owner. The original farm owner recently got a dog, a young Labrador Retriever. The trouble is that the dog would jump on my kids. It wasn’t trying to be threatening, it just wanted to play. My kids haven’t been outside much since August. They would only go outside if I was with them or if I tracked down the dog and tied him him up. The dog’s owner wasn’t pleased with the dog being tied up as a couple of times I’d forgotten to untie the dog when my kids came back in. He let me know that on Friday when I was out looking to tie up the dog.
This made me extremely angry. I can understand why he doesn’t want the dog tied up and left, but now my kids can’t even play outside anymore? Grrr. I stewed and grumbled and ranted about that all afternoon and into the next day. We even did some looking to see if there was a chance we could afford to move out into a place of our own. I’d settled down by today and was going to step up my efforts to get my kids used to the dumb dog.
Now the eldest (who is used to the dog) is saying that the neighbor said that the dog has been sent away. I feel terrible. Now I feel as though I’ve deprived the neighbor of his dog just because I didn’t put enough effort into getting my kids used to having the thing around and because I shot off my mouth about the whole situation. I have exactly what I wanted, and it stinks. Sigh.
Brothers In Arms
Sep 4
In my slow rereading of the Vorkosigan Saga, I’ve just completed Brothers in Arms. This has to be my favorite series of books. The only series that can compare to it is the Honor Harrington series. You can read early books in both series for free at the Baen Free Library.
What draws me to the Miles books is both how amazing he is and how human he his. He comes up with brilliant ideas and then manages to get himself caught in his own elaborate schemes. He manages to take over an army using little more than his gift with words, and has a heck of a time persuading anyone to marry him. He is amazingly believable. I love the way he grows and yet remains the same over the course of the series.
Every time I read a book in the series I come out feeling as though I could take on the world.
I forgot to write up a session log for last game.
The PCs camped out, buffed up, and returned to face the wraiths. This time the wraiths had support from a sibbecai archer with an impressive bow. Once again, the magic user was nearly killed – this time on the last round of combat. Fortunately, they got a healing potion to her in time. She then used telekenisis to grab the dead sibbecai’s bow. They then went into the castle and were ambused by a dread wraith sovereign (based off of a magic user they had met last time they were here), a magic user, and the Keep’s former military commander. They managed to break the compulsion on the commander, but he got blasted by a wave of death the next round. The PC warmain broke through an eldertich wall and grappled the magic user and pounded on him. The other two PCs kept the wraith sovereign busy.
The PCs went down to the Ebonring chamber and used its scrying capabilities to look around. They spotted a human looking creature to the south and a black winged humanoid to the north. The diplomatic archer went out and chatted with them. The human looked feral and didn’t seem too sharp, the winged humanoid seemed sharp enough. She then killed the feral human. Thanks to an amazing roll on the archer’s part, boosted with her extremely high diplomacy score, she talked the winged humanoid into coming with her back to the keep, at which point the rest of the party ambushed him and peppered him with compelling questions. They found out that he was working for a shadow dragon who lives in a canyon to the north.
The PCs rested up overnight after using the Ebonring’s powers to seal up the Keep. They identified the sibbecai archer’s bow (they’d been very nervous about using it unidentified). In the early morning a shadow dragon came tearing in with a group of those winged humanoids. The archer and magic user went to the roof and stated blating at them. The warmain sat down in the Ebonring room and watched. They managed to get a few good shots in before retrating into the keep. The dragon summoned a gargantuan nightcrawler into the foyer of the keep and that started eating through walls left and right. The archer and magic user used murder holes and arrow slits to great advantage. The warmain finally game up and started fighting the nightcrawler. He was swallowed for his efforts, but hacked his way out. Once the nightcrawler was dead, the fight was pretty much over – the dragon got trapped in a narrow corridor, had his staff taken away, and was grappled when he shrunk in attempt to escape out a window.