Gaming & Drawing

Strange things are afoot in gaming and art. After not having a regular gaming campaign for a while, I find myself with four different gaming projects on the go.

1. Call of Cthulhu – which I’ve been involved with for a few months now. Caleb is running.

2. Drexoll D&D Campaign – a little once a month “perpetual” campaign which I started today (yesterday) and which went reasonably well. DM: me. Next episode in January.
3. “Girls Campaign” redux – the old group with Kelly, Michelle & Paul with some changes are getting back together for a short 5 episode December-long jaunt into swords and sorcery. I’m DMing for a few sessions then Paul will take over.

4. D&D refugees – new campaign starting up with the CampyCon group. Geoff is running. I told them I couldn’t really commit until January but they’re not letting that stop them.

I’ve got to make sure all this gaming doesn’t cut into my productive time. Especially since:

a. The kids book is getting back on track.

b. I’ve accepted two quick-turnaround gaming illustration jobs after a drought for months and months.

c. Outnumbered (as described in the previous post).

d. The album, of course.

Cthulhu Limericks

The High Priest was queerly perplexed
When the cultists spilled blood on the text
He was heard (to his shame)
When the Outer Gods came
Chanting “sexed” when it should have been “hexed”

Though the cultists were dressed to the nines
The Grand Rite was of unsound design
For Cthulhu to stir
With his buddy Hastur
They should wait for the stars to align

A fiendish fakir fond of floggin’
Was found with a bug in his noggin
As we drilled in his head
He was heard to have said
“Cthulhu Wagn’nagl Fhtagn”

With my roleplaying buddies I planned
A Lovecraftian rock ‘n’ roll band
When the media tires me
And asks what inspires me
I just show them my pineal gland

$50 Fantasy

On the Vancouver Gaming Guild messageboards some feller posted that he was moving out of town (to Victoria) and was getting rid of a bunch of warhammer & D&D miniatures. I conned Joyce into driving me out to Richmond so that I could look at what he had. I told him I had $40 to spend. He originally quoted a buck a miniature. I walked away with probably 300 miniatures, a battlemat, a bunch of primers, paints etc, and about 15 books and magazines for $50. Joyce, not being privy to the nerdiness that you all are, just stood there and looked at me like I was Jack the Knife, which was very amusing to me. But she warmed up to me after that when we went to the Aberdeen Mall and I bought her some thai curry chicken and we took in the spectacle that is Daiso (I got some striped toe socks for myself).

We then came home and watched Requiem For A Dream which had great acting, great music, and great cinematography, but as anyone who has seen it knows, is a bit much. Joyce agreed to watch it thinking it was Memento. HAHAHAHA!

After she left, I spent 2-3 hours picking out the minis and books that I wanted to keep. Then I packed the rest up to give to Paul and to take to the Drexoll Games First Annual Game Auction, which was tons of fun (and free donuts). I sold 54 rare Eldar minis for $7, probably about 75 orcs for $1, and probably about 50-100 assorted D&D miniatures (some painted, some not, some plastic, some pewter, some lead) including 2 dragons and a big ass minotaur for $10. And with the $17 I made from the battlemat (thanks Geisel) I already made back $34 of the $50 I spent the night before. The assorted magazines, books, crazy D&D collectible cards, and rest of the stuff in a two foot stack that nobody bid on I gave to a 10 year old keener who was the only person that was interested in them. His dad wouldn’t let me sell it to him for 50 cents, so I took a fin. The kid was super-stoked and that made me feel good. Truly, the children are our nerdy future.

Assorted Bits

Here’s some hot news I discovered while trying to find something to eat at the Greyhound depot:

McDonald’s jr chicken burger = 390 calories
Mars Bar = 234 calories

So my character in Call of Cthulhu was horribly horribly killed last Sunday. My history of CoC characters going out in cool ways is pretty good. He didn’t just fall off a cliff or get shot in the chest or something. This guy, and Indian manservant, was stabbed and beaten by cultists, and then flung into a pit with a hideous, wailing abomination against nature which proceeded to take hundreds of tiny bites out of him while simultaneously crushing him. All the while protecting his unconscious master (and saving him from the same gruesome fate). My character from a previous campaign also more or less sacrificed himself to save the world, by forcing his compatriot to shoot him in the head. Yay!

Yesterday we (the Thickets) recorded via a more or less proper computerized electronical recording system a bunch of the new songs so that we can review them before we actually go into the studio in December. We also decided that one of the songs will be left entirely a capella – by me. It wasn’t my decision, I was against it, but they talked me into it and since time is a factor it may actually be a boon to the rest of the songs. Hopefully it won’t stick out like a sore thumb. If it sticks out like a massaged and energized thumb then that’s okay.

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photo by Amanda Seminoff

Went to a Spelling Bee This Morning

Words I got right: demesne, kilojoule, rusticate, flexuous, juvenescence, infusible, subtlety, lackadaisical, keister, judder, colloquy, gherkin, funambulist
Words I got wrong: flibbertygibbet, fricassee, lachrymose, cheechako, kennebecasis (I mean come on).

Art at V-Con

So tomorrow is V-Con and I’m trying to figure out what to bring for the art show. I had some grand schemes of getting things framed but my heart just wasn’t in it. Frames! Frames are for suckers. So anyway I’m this very moment going through my files of original art that has been sitting in my file folder stagnating. I really have no idea what to charge for these things. I guess if nothing sells it means either I’m charging too much or it just plain sucks. At the very least people will see my stuff and I’ll have a whack of business cards. Oh yeah, self-promo, I forgot about you! AGAIN!

Here’s a really old one (’99 as you can see) that I dug up out of the files. Feng Shui the RPG is weird, I’m sure you’ll agree!

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Slightly Dull Weekend Wrap-up

This weekend was full of frisky frolics. I went into Chilliwack on Friday to hang out with Mr Woods and to practice with the band one last time before the show. I’ll put up some photos courtesy Amanda soon enough.

We played some Destroy All Humans for the XBox. It was a lot of fun, destroying tanks in a flying saucer and whatnot. Reminded me a little of the Invader Zim cartoon. And I totally pigged out on the worst kind of junk food, it was liberating (dark chocolate almond bark, peanut M&Ms, Black Pepper Jack Doritos, and licorice allsorts). We hit the Value Village and waited in a long line. We had lunch at the Airport Cafe and the waitress was surly AND screwed up my order. She tried to invoke the “no substitutions” clause on the Daily Special stand-up (I’m sure there’s a name for those plastic things, but I have no idea what to call it) but they forgot to put it on. At least the pie was delicious, as usual.

The rock show at The Vault went well, despite 3/4 of the band being sick with cold (including me). We played six new songs and they went over pretty well I think. I had to use cheat sheets for some of the lyrics. Merrick stuck me at the door taking people’s money, which was a pain, asking for $5 from disinterested old farts and people who didn’t have to pay because “we are friends with the owner” but at least we sold a goodly amount of merchandise. Clearly I should have brought more Big Robot Dinosaur and Sendak Cthulhu pins as they were all the rage.

Regardless, lots of fun in goat legs.

I got home in the wee hours of Sunday morning thanks to Peet and Amanda, listening to Zombina & the Skeletones (“Nobody Likes You When You’re Dead” is a good one) on the trip.

On Sunday it was a bit of Call of Cthulhu with Caleb & the Gang and then hanging out with Joyce getting a good workout trying to explain how roleplaying games work. Also watched the comedic wuxia film White Dragon which was weird but pretty fun.

A Tale of Two Dressers

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By popular demand here are some photos of my sticker-laden dressers.

I realized as I was putting this collage together, that in fact I forgot to take a snap of one of the dresser tops. I didn’t forget to take detailed shots of the BACKS (not many stickers, but a few) or the inside of the drawers themselves (as seen above). I didn’t forget, I just didn’t want to bother. I figure what I present should keep you occupied for a while. It’s like a “Where’s Waldo” of pop culture over the past 20 years, only EVERYTHING is a Waldo, fer Crissakes.

Here is the ever-so-large jpeg. It may take a minute to fully load.

http://www.thickets.net/toren/dresserfinal.jpg

Count The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets stickers!! Feel free to ask questions, I will do my best to answer.

"NO BEARS!"

CampyCon I Report!

I spent all week stressing (to the extent I’m able) about what to pack for camping, not having been for ohhhhhhhhh 12 years or so? Everything turned out pretty damn good though – I didn’t freeze during the night, I didn’t have to lug my gear pretty much at all. We had figured to go to Alice Lake for 2 nights, but Mr Geisel couldn’t come if we went that far and long, so we changed our plans to a campsite on Mt Seymour that was perfect for gaming, and not exactly what I’d call ‘roughing it.’ Observe:

This is the site. You see that little building? It had SIX picnic tables inside. We could have run seven games at once including the table outside! Just down the path in the middle of the photo is the trail that leads to where we pitched our tents.

You can see the wood stove in the back of the building. This is where we heated delicious pies.


All the amenities of home. Almost all.

Off to a Jerky Start.

We left late on Friday, around 7pm. It took us some time to get to the site. We made two stops, one for food and one for firewood, before we were stopped on the mountain road by the crew that was filming “Masters of Horror.” So we waited and waited and were worried that we were going to be turned back. Finally they let us through. Then we waited at another checkpoint. We finally got past the filming and we realized the parking lot where were were supposed to go was the exact place where we were stopped the first time. We spent 20 minutes sitting right next to our campsite complaining about how we weren’t at the campsite yet.

Cooking Food and Rolling Dice.

We had lots of great food. Jason brought up salmon steaks!

After filling our bellies with those and yummy squash salad we prepared for some gaming. I, of course, was the Dungeon Master! Here are a few of our stalwart heroes:

Geisel
Level 5 Husband
Hit Points: 27

Geoff
Charisma: 18
12 ranks in Survival


Jamie
Will Save: +7
Feats: Brew Potion; Magical Aptitude

Knowing that this was going to be a simple, one-shot, first level game Geisel suggested everyone come with two characters in case one died. Indeed, I took out Jason and Geisel’s characters quite handily. Here we are, six white nerds:

Dig those headlamps – good for gaming in the dark.

We played until about 2am. Before we hit our respective sacks, Simon gave us a fire show:

and I discovered that my camera has a fireworks setting!

I pitched my tent for the very first time in the dark. Here’s what it looked like in the morning! Boring for you to look at, I know, but I was excited. SO DAMN EXCITED! CAMPYCON! WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Thanks, Kate & Theo! This tent was one of my birthday auction BONANZAS!

The next morning, we had a fine, fine breakfast, played some Magic: The Gathering, and then proceeded up the mountain to Dinky Peak. I didn’t bring a t-shirt so I wore my old, ratty, long underwear-ish long sleeve. It got hot enough that I literally bit the sleeves off.

Yes, that’s the shirt.


The end. See you next year, if you’ve got the dice for it!

Something To Watch On TV Again

Five days without a post, how shameful.

The last few days have been pretty full. I got an acting agent. I played that dice game as seen in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 a couple times with Sam & Stephane and some others at the Drexoll German Board Game Night. Also played that railroad game and some bean planting game which was pretty decent. The next morning I was right back in the store, for Warhammer with Michael at a VGG Game Day. Here’s the character I played:

Then I went to another comic jam at the Jolly Alderman and disseminated buttons to Robin, Rebecca, Brian, Ed, and another guy who is an animator whose name I forget, but he was pretty excited about Stewie’s Powerpuft Girl, which is a cross between the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and the Powerpuff Girls. Then I went to Mike & Sam’s birthday party and saw some delightfully hideous stuffed creatures, and Mike and I talked about a delightfully macabre candy which would be a chocolate “belly” and a gummy fetus inside it. It comes with a coat hanger spoon. Sorry I should have given a warning before I threw that out, eh? Then I played Call of Cthulhu with Caleb and the gang, and then went to a Vancouver Gaming Guild meeting where we talked about V-Con and Weathertop. There will be no Con Fu and no H.P. Lovecraft’s Birthday Party in 2007, thereby making Weathertop bigger by default (one would imagine). Yesterday I spent most of the day working on my Thickets homework, and I biked downtown. Today I’m off to Chilliwack for practice. Looks like we’ll have a show in Vancouver on Oct 21 – so mark it on your calendar! At the Backstage Lounge with A Canadian Werewolf In….
Still having difficulty getting quorum for a Musicology Slackademics class. I guess everyone already knows how to read music?

Most importantly, I discovered that Space is playing The Hilarious House of Frightenstein! Finally something to watch on TV again! Turner Classic Movies doesn’t count as TV because there’s no commercials.