Just Some Thoughts About Stuff

Captain Picard and Admiral Pinkerton would not have gotten along very well.

When you fall in an anime about fourteen-year-olds, you fall on someone. No exception. I guess this would be more likely to happen in Asia than in elbow-room America anyway.

If I am ever going to crush someone's life out with my giant horrifying robot, I want to listen to Requiem Mass for a while first and think about it.

Anime has proven that you can have a Caucasian fro and still be cool. It has also proven that it is possible to have any color of hair and be twelve with size 14DD breasts. That is all I'm saying about white people with fros.

If there were a Make-a-Wish Foundation for adults, I would intentionally contract lymphoma and use my wish to go to the Ghibli museum.

Life would be easier if either everyone was staunchly bisexual or everyone was a eunuch. Both of these would de-confuse everything and lower the population drastically.

The English language is pretty off. The fact that there are people walking around with the name Doug is proof enough.

If a mecha anime and a harem anime went to a party together, there would be a pretty even mix of men and women. And still, none of them would hook up.

Kara wants to be reincarnated as shark. I vote for lesser panda--she wants carnage, I want everyone to want desperately to pet me.

People talk really openly about masturbation these days. That's kind of weird, really.

Life sucks when you never laugh, but it's not worth a damn if you never cry either.

Projects, Changes and random facts

Okay, so Thomas talked me into posting here again. I was just keeping it for commenting, but I am weak and easily swayed. Oh well!

So, in my last post, it was winter and I was living in my parents' house. Now it's summer and I'm living across the street from them. During that time, my life got stretched out like a big rubber band, and then fell mostly back into the shape it used to be, with a couple of wrinkles and with my snapped thumb still smarting. Oh well, if everything isn't nonsense then most things are, right?

So, that's all I have to say on that. It's been pissing me off that I loved Postal Service but hadn't really enjoyed Death Cab on the various occasions that I'd heard bits and peices of it, so I thought I'd sit down and give it another shot. Turns out I like it, but I believe I'll have to be in a fairly sentimental mood to enjoy it. That's an odd thing about me--the older I've gotten, the less truly sentimental I've gotten but the more accepting I am of sentimental or just plain girly things. Go figure. Either way, Postal Service still gets a better score than Death Cab, since I really like the sound of it more than just about anything else, but the Ben Gibbard hyprocisy is officially over.

On another note, I've been running a D&D campaign the last few weeks. It's been pretty awesome, and I think so far it's really my most successful campaign to date. Only time will tell of course, but I believe that building my own setting and slowly building the ambitiousness of it (instead of jumping in with a pretty complicated plot from the get-go), as well as just having read more fantasy and quite frankly watched a lot more good anime, makes a big difference.

The only other things I have to say right now are fanboyish, so I shall keep them to myself. Goodnight!

Interesting Times

A Short Excerpt That is Hopefully Pleasing

Hello,

  I know not too many people read here anymore, but I just plain felt like posting the little prologue I did for the story I'm writing. Hope it's nice and not sucky!

     It was Caphius’ favorite sort of summer day, the kind of day so gentle that, rather than pick up his quill or even his brushes, the centaur was fully content to simply absorb the scent and sensation of deep contentment that accompanied the midsummer weather. On days like these, the sunlight warming the high boughs angled its way down in golden shafts all the way into the deep, cool hollows of the Wellwood, the darkest and oldest part of the Silver Wood—and not coincidentally, the home of Caphius’ oldest and best friend, Argentus. The poet found his inspiration in the minute details and changes of the natural world, and made his way slowly to the forest’s center, taking time to study the ferns and other plants of the forest floor as they stretched toward the long beams of sunlight that so rarely touched them. Miles from his destination, Caphius’ sense of ease began to ebb as he began to sense the Well itself, worming its way in to his subconscious as it had these last several years. Argentus had found in his friend the gift of seeing, if not prophecy, and had given him the very rare privilege of learning to use the Well as the forest lord himself had for so many millennia. Caphius was at best adequate at understanding what it showed him—when it chose to show him anything—but its effect on his psyche was anything but minute. Stretching his powerful legs for a moment, Caphius broke into a canter, letting the air rushing by him dry the beads of sweat that had collected on his broad forehead.

It was not long before the forest path began to wind down a steep hillside into a hollow untouched by any light, save in its very center. There stood the Well, long ago known as the Well of Life, a spiral of crystals dredged up from the earth and filled with something more pure and clear than the purest water in the world. It had given up its most profound power to give birth to the great forest of which it was now the center, but was still a tool of great utility to those who could wield it, showing the secrets of past, present, and the less perceivable secrets of the future. Its most expert wielder was of course Argentus, who stood before it now, a troubled and perplexed look on his face. Today the forest lord was wearing his elven form, which he said he preferred for what he thought of as everyday tasks, such as divination or simple matters of ruling. Caphius stepped to the opposite side, and Argentus did not flinch, looking instead at the changing images reflected in the surface of the well’s utterly smooth water.

Caphius watched the images for a few moments, seeing them pass between a scene of terror and one of seeming mundanity, and then across the length and breadth of the world and perhaps time. One of the most useful things Argentus had taught him during the years of training had been how to perceive the time in which the Well’s images took place—without that context, nothing he was witnessing would make sense. As it was, he understood that a trade had taken place, that two pieces that had been moved by each side in the inevitable conflict—and not necessarily in the last millennium or even the same millennium—had fallen into place almost simultaneously. The fact that only the sketchiest images of the future appeared in the Well were cause to believe that either side would have to move with the greatest of care.

At last the images faded, and the only view the two friends had was of the crystal clear well stretching deep into the earth. Caphius looked up to find Argentus meeting his gaze. The look on his face was troubled, but with hope as well. “So,” the centaur said. His voice cracked, and he began to realize just how long he’d been gazing into the well.

Argentus nodded. “I did not know Ingre’s children would bring that to pass so soon,” he said, his soft voice somehow filling the grotto.

Caphius smiled. “And yet you knew that would happen. The other . . . “

Argentus returned the centaur’s smile. “We must take the small victories, I suppose. I know not this one’s significance, but I did see a human face . . . which means we will have to treat this matter with care. I will need your council, friend. You have done a better job of retaining your kindness.”

Caphius laughed, stepping around the Well and placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Friend, if I had lived for half the years you have I would not have held on to even a scrap of kindness.”

Argentus smiled, but it held a glimmer of sadness. “Come, let’s do our best and try to enjoy what’s left of this fine day now that our lovely Well has taken away its sweetest hours.” Caphius tried to put the face he’d seen out of his mind, a task which enjoyed a greater degree of success than the banishment of the terrors he’d witnessed, but he hoped the day would come when he would see him again. Neither he nor Argentus knew what it meant that they had seen that strange human’s visage in the waters, but the Well did not show them anything in vain. It was hard to understand the Well, but it had something of a will of its own, almost a personality, and it had presented the man—well, boy really—as a gift, as a counterpart to the darkness that was growing unfettered in these late years. Caphius tried to count it simply as a blessing . . . for to weigh an unknown, callow youth against the plans of their enemies was not the path to hope.